Factory Fresh (shown above)
Factory Fresh claims that it wants you to be healthy. Cool. But then it wants you to pay an insane amount of money for it. Here’s the deal: Factory Fresh will deliver a package of pre-prepared meals for the entire day – breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks – according to the amount of calories you’d ultimately like to consume. Plans run from RMB280 per day for 1,200 calories to RMB340 per day for 2,200 calories.
For that kind of money, the food ought to go to the gym for you. But it doesn’t. Instead, it tastes uninspiring and leaves you hungry at the end of the day.
We’re genuinely surprised and saddened. The team at Factory is uniformly great. We love the in-house creations at their 798 District location – genuinely we do, go try them! – and we were excited to try their delivery service. And we tried, very hard, to like it.
But we didn’t. Perhaps we just caught them on a bad day? For breakfast, our rubbery banana bread squeaks in our mouths. At lunch, we try to enjoy a dry chicken breast and polenta. And at dinner we have a pretty decent tuna steak, but it’s undermined by over-salty quinoa.
Look, we know Factory Fresh doesn’t have it easy. The team has to make meals that are both low in calories and easily deliverable – and they need to turn a profit. But we like to think there are better-tasting healthy options out there. And we know there are cheaper ones.
The Rug
The Rug is here to save your love life (or kick-start it, depending on your disposition).
Yep, summer 2015’s hottest date here in Beijing is a Rug picnic hamper (RMB248 for two people), which comes not only with a wicker basket, but a picnic blanket, lunch for two and a complimentary tricycle ride to the nearby park.
It’s a unique way to solve the problem of crowding at The Rug’s popular Chaoyang Park location. No space in the restaurant? Fine. A tricycle ride to the park sounds more fun, anyway.
The basket includes enough food for a hungry couple. Ours came with two sandwiches – one on bread, the other a bagel – fresh fruit, yogurt, and The Rug’s delicious homemade vegetable chips. You can also get your choice of iced coffee or fresh-squeezed orange juice. Add a bottle of wine to your basket for RMB100.
This is, obviously, a deal only available during the warm months of the summer, and, more specifically, at The Rug’s Chaoyang Park location – though there is a suggestion that, should it prove popular, it will get rolled out across the city. Office picnic? Here’s hoping.
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