Healthy food

Shanghai Healthy Eats

Posted on by Shanghaista

Shanghai is so ridiculously amazing when it comes to food and restaurants. It’s so easy to accidentally let your eating get out of hand, haha! Luckily, restaurants with healthy concepts have been popping up for a while now, making it easy and fairly affordable to eat consciously. Home cooking is of course an option, but when you’re short on time, it’s just hard to resist eating out or ordering take-out, especially when it’s often cheaper than buying ingredients for the things I like to cook myself.

Here are a few of my favorites for delicious healthy Shanghai eats:

1. Topping the list is Wheat Healthy Eatery. I used to only get home-delivery from Wheat (not that that’s a bad option), as their restaurant was located a bit off from where I live in the French Concession. Then, a couple of months ago, came the best news ever: Wheat was opening a second branch in the hot corner of Fumin Lu and Changle Lu, only minutes away from my house! This has been my new everyday lunch and hangout spot since the soft opening a few weeks back (so much that I now call it “the office”). The interior is gorgeous, making it such an inviting and nice space to meet up friends or get some work done.

Some of my favorite dishes at Wheat are 1) black rice and salmon protein bowl, 2) beetroot hummus with veggie sticks, and 3) grilled salmon + brown rice, broccoli & cherry tomatoes from the Create your own -option. And the Immunity booster juice is fantastic. Simple dishes, quality ingredients. Perfect.

Wheat Shanghaista

Wheat

Wheat Shanghaista

2. Another big, big healthy favorite of mine is Little Catch, which is a friendly urban fishmonger and poke shop on Wulumuqi Lu in the FFC. The super cute little place is run by two sisters from Hong Kong who are third generation fishmongers, selling high quality seafood and Hawaiian Poke bowls. I love their Classic Hawaiian Salmon poke bowl for lunch, and I often pick up some salmon for home cooking or sashimi. (Can you tell that I love salmon??) The food is consistent, and the fish and seafood always safe and fresh.

3. A third healthy and satisfying option is Sproutworks. With a few locations around town, Sproutworks has a great variation of soups, sandwiches, salads, healthy sides, grains and proteins that rotate daily, and can be mixed and matched pretty much in anyway you like. I go for the healthy sides, tossed salads and proteins, which are very filling, fresh and tasty. Highly recommended!

What’s your favorite healthy spot in Shanghai? Let us know in the comments! And don’t forget to follow me on Instagram @shanghaistablog.

Cheers for the weekend!

My new best friends – Online grocery stores

Posted on by Shanghaista

Phew, what a busy week it has been! Long days with plenty on the to-do list, plus a crazy heatwave that sucks all energy out of you the second you step away from the aircon… With weeks like these I’m super-happy that my new best friends are there to help me through it all. They truly are a lifesaver. So here they are, my new besties – the online grocery stores!

Online grocery stores are nothing new, but at least for me the level of speed, choice and convenience of it all here in Shanghai is on a different level (with some exceptions of course). So far I’ve only tried two different ones, but there are plenty more on my list. Here are my experiences so far:

Fields
www.fieldschina.com
Fields is the shop I heard about the most even before I moved to Shanghai. They pop up on top of the search results too and have a user friendly English website and app, so naturally this ended up being the first one I tried. And I’m happy I did, I have been a satisfied returning customer for many weeks now. Here’s what to expect:

  • What I like to order: fresh foods, fruit, veggies, frozen berries, imported things like pasta, pesto, milk, everyday groceries in general.
  • High quality products mainly for a conscious consumer. Organic options on fruits, veggies and many other categories.
  • Lots of imported products throughout the categories. Local products as well, but from carefully selected partners, so expect high-end local stuff.
  • The price level is a bit higher than at “normal” supermarkets, but nothing too crazy.
  • Free delivery on orders over 200 CNY and multiple delivery windows to choose from. Same day delivery if you order before 17:00 – how great is that! So far deliveries have been on time, and cold items have arrived cold, frozen items frozen and so on. I pay cash on delivery.
  • All in all two thumbs up! However, I do wish they would include some of my favorite local products (such as WeiQuan orange juice) and have a bigger variety locally produced (i.e. reasonably priced) household items such as kitchen towels, laundry detergents etc.

Carrefour
www.carrefour.cn
Carrefour is an old player in China, catering mainly to the needs of locals, but also offering a pretty good variety of imported products making it popular among expats. They have multiple physical supermarkets around Shanghai, and a couple of months ago they launched their online shop and mobile app. Here’s what to expect from ordering online:

  • What I like to get: bulk and household items such as toilet paper, kitchen towels, cleaning stuff, laundry detergent, hand soap, boxes of soda water, beer, coffee filters etc.
  • There’s a pretty good variety of products, but I mainly stick to dry-goods and order a big batch of household staples once a month.
  • Expect normal supermarket prices. Delivery fee depends on how much you buy and how much the total weight of your order is. My two orders have been 15-25 kg and 300-400 CNY per order, and both times the delivery was free. I pay cash on delivery.
  • Delivery time – big problem. First of all, the offered delivery windows are incredibly inconvenient. Sometimes it’s a 6 hour window (e.g. between 8-14), and sometimes 12 hours (between 8-20). Who has time for that!? Second of all, they don’t stick to the delivery window of your choice. Ugh! The last time I ordered, I chose to have items delivered on Thursday between 8-20, and the goods showed up on Saturday! Luckily I had asked the reception at Fraser Residence (our current home) to accept the order on our behalf, so I didn’t waste time waiting. But still, very annoying. So I would definitely hesitate ordering from Carrefour if I didn’t have a reception, concierge, ayi or someone who will be around to accept the order whenever it shows up. Also, I don’t think I’ll be ordering fresh items or things that need to be in the cold until this delivery problem is fixed…

The following online grocery stores have also been recommended, but I haven’t had the chance to try just yet:

Cityshop
www.cityshop.com.cn
Recommended by many friends, Cityshop seems to have a great selection of local and imported food at reasonable prices. Good quality but nothing über-fancy. The wine selection looks really good too (now that I made that discovery I’ll definitely be placing an order in the coming days)! Free delivery for orders over 200 CNY, and same day delivery on orders placed before 15:00. I’m convinced!

Kate & Kimi
www.kateandkimi.com
These guys are known for their focus on quality products and safe, healthy foods. Their main target is Shanghai expats, which is reflected in their great variety of products for a more Western taste and standard. I wanted to order from Kate & Kimi the other week, but their website happened to be down so I returned to good old reliable Fields. I will give K&K another shot soon, they seem to have a great reputation in the community so I’m sure it will be worth it.

And what do the pictures below have to do with online grocery stores? Well, absolutely nothing. They’re just snaps from our lovely stroll last night.

Have a great new week and don’t forget to follow me on social media! :)
Facebook: @shanghaista
Instagram: @shanghaistablog

Shanghai Shanghaista Xintiandi

Shanghai Shanghaista Xintiandi

Shanghai Shanghaista Xintiandi

Sproutworks – Healthy Lunch in Xintiandi

Posted on by Shanghaista

After only a few days in town I can see that the health and wellness trend has not only reached Shanghai, but exploded here. There seem to be endless options of gyms, fitness studios, juice bars and healthy eateries everywhere. I’m pretty excited about this as I try to maintain a somewhat healthy lifestyle, and now I’m on a quest to find awesome food spots with healthy, safe, quality food that makes your mind and body happy.

First up is Sproutworks, a cafe/restaurant that seems to be a big favorite in town, loved by both locals and expats. The concept is simple – they offer fresh, high quality varieties of tossed salads, healthy sides, soups, paninis, smoothies, juices, homemade iced teas and lots more.

I visited Sproutworks for lunch yesterday for the first time. I ordered half a salad with two healthy sides plus chicken breast for extra protein, and a homemade iced tea to drink. This cost me about CNY 110, and the portion was enormous. Half would have been enough for me, so next time I’ll probably leave out the extra protein or one of the sides. But it was delicious, you can tell by both the taste and look of the food that they focus a lot on quality and freshness. I can’t wait to go back and try other options on the menu! I also absolutely loved the iced tea – it had a bit of sugar but was definitely not too sweet. Very refreshing in the 35 degree heat.

The restaurant itself was clean, bright, cozy and no-nonsense, matching the food concept well. You order the food at the counter where many of the available options are displayed. The staff assembles your food, you pay and you’re off with your meal on a tray. The Xintiandi location offers both an indoor and outdoor seating area for enjoying all the goodness. The restaurant was pretty quiet with plenty of empty tables when I arrived right before noon, but 15-20 minutes later the place was packed with downtown Shanghai’s health conscious lunchers.

All in all, a great lunch experience and I will definitely be going back very soon. Awesome, healthy lunch spot #1 discovered!

I visited Sproutworks in Xintiadi on 185 Madang Lu, but they have four other locations across Shanghai as well. It’s also super quick and easy for take-out, and all five restaurants offer delivery for orders over CNY 100.

Got any tips on healthy, good restaurants in Shanghai? Please do share in the comments below!

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