It seems like everyone is on a diet, watching their weight or their figure, avoiding carbs, going Vegan etc at the moment, either that or my ears are more tuned to hearing these things as I’m doing something too!
I’ve mixed feelings on eating out, half of me wants to splurge on the calories and let loose on the diet in whatever shape or form it may be and to order what I want without recrimination. The other half of me says that it should be possible to eat out, have tasty food and feel satisfied without going crazy and ditching the diet.
With a renewed focus on eating healthy and having balance in my life, partly linked to our campaign #BringBackBalance and partly linked to a challenge that I’m doing called #Switch360 I headed off to Under 500 calories for a weekend lunch to experience their “Great Taste, No Guilt” promise.
The promise is that every dish on the menu is under 500 calories, wholesome and healthy. We put this to the test over lunch.
The website is enticing, each meal looks vibrant and fresh and certainly this was reflected in the food we ate. Each dish comes with details on calories, protein, carbs and fat nutrition information which helps in making sections particularly if you are focusing on something particular e.g. high protein.
Everything we ordered was presented beautifully considering we were eating in a small mall type restaurant. Taste was good and portions were an adequate size with the option to add an additional portion of protein if required. There’s plenty of options to suit breakfast through to dinner and without the guilt factor which is great. We were the only diners at the time of the visit, but the delivery bikes were a regular occurrence and it seems like they do a great trade in delivery.
Meals tried included :
- Kale & Lentil Soup
- Edamame
- Lean Beef Shakshouka (it’s more like scrambled eggs with mini meat balls)
- Salmon Zucchini Pasta – with protein pasta
- Sweet Potato fries
- Slimmed Down Brownies
- Peanut Butter Surprise
- Lean Green Cold Pressed Juice
Overall we had a great healthy and tasty lunch. Over lunch we played a game of ‘guess the nutrition information’ of each dish before checking for full details which was interesting. We left feeling adequately full without the guilt of overindulgence and would definitely order from them, or drop by if we were in the area – we dined in The Marina, they are also in JLT and Business Bay.