Shanghai Restaurant Review: The Flow Café

By Cristina Ng, July 2, 2018

The Place

Premium cold-pressed juice purveyor VCLEANSE has expanded its offerings to include new café on the 38th floor of the HKRI Taikoo Hui office building’s first tower.

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Envisioned as a plant-based, healthy alternative to coffee chains like Starbucks, The Flow Café provides performance-driven meals designed to energize while avoiding the dreaded post-lunch slump. Although an easy stop for building tenants, outside visitors will need to sign in on the ground floor to gain access.

The Food

Everything except the factory-produced juices is freshly made onsite, making this an easy place to get your fill of vegetables, fruits and whole grains in the form of toasts, salads, bowls and smoothies containing more nutritious ingredients than we can count.

When it comes to toasts, they have one mushroom and two versions of the requisite avocado toast: one Japanese-inspired, the other Middle Eastern (all RMB58). The latter comes with homemade dukkah (a crunchy aromatic blend of nuts, seeds and spices), balsamic marinated tomatoes, feta, basil and arugula and it gets our vote for Shanghai’s best avocado toast.

Next up, the ‘Japanese Garden’ avocado and black rice salad (RMB68) features a zippy dressing made with sesame, tamari (soy) and ume (plum). Add rice (black and brown), edamame, carrots, cucumber, radish, cilantro, pickled ginger and pepitas for a satisfying approximation of a vegetarian California roll.

Smoothies come in mason jars with toppings and layers that a #cameraeatsfirst crowd will surely appreciate. While the mango berry is much prettier, we prefer the mango pineapple green smoothie (both RMB42), where the addition of spinach evens out the fruitiness.

The Flow Café’s treats are healthy and all clock in at under 200 calories. The dairyintolerant or vegans will dig the ‘Mousse de Coco’ choices. While the matcha and black sesame (RMB40) variety is a deliciously subtle merger of tastes, the tiramisu (RMB40) is a much more convincing substitute for traditional desserts with creamy date-sweetened coffee mousse layered between almond and cacao nib crumble.

The café is also great for a pick-me-up with their own roasted Arabica coffee beverages and milk teas. House-made nut milk, coconut milk and decaffeinated options are also available to suit every preference.

Food Verdict: 2.5/3

The Vibe

Eating well needn’t be bland or difficult, and this well thought out concept does a good job in bringing clean-eating convenience to Shanghai’s harried office workers. Beautiful plates of artfully arranged produce are prepared to order in a comfortable open space with a panoramic city view.