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Want a healthy meal on the go? Take-away fast food joint Grab Your Meal might just be the answer

Want a healthy meal on the go? Take-away fast food joint Grab Your Meal might just be the answer

The Lahore-based joint lets a customer create their own meal – a sandwich or a bowl
27 Aug, 2017

Is healthy, nutritious, calculated eating the ‘it’ trend in town? Maybe not yet, but there is potential, definitely.

People now are more than ever conscious of what and how much they eat. Eating habits do take time to evolve and where food is passion, people will want to try out anything new provided it is promoted smartly.

A venture called Grab Your Meal – aptly abbreviated as GYM – opened in the DHA in May. Located a couple of lanes behind the bustling Y block market in a residential neighbourhood, this small eatery is not hard to locate though they need to update their map location on their Facebook page.

Grab Your Meal is located near Y block market, Lahore. Photo: GrabYourMeal/Facebook
Grab Your Meal is located near Y block market, Lahore. Photo: GrabYourMeal/Facebook

As per young proprietor Umair Ijaz, the idea of GYM stemmed from his own need for healthy, grilled food that he could have as fast food that he couldn’t find anywhere in Lahore. He insists the food he serves is not only for the fitness conscious who hit the gym every day, but for anyone who wishes to eat healthy, hygienic, grilled fast food with nutrients because "it’s 2017 and about time people started watching what they were eating."

Meant to be a take-away fast food joint primarily, GYM does have a handful of bar stools in case you want to dine in. Upon entering the tiny space, you’re welcomed by a spacious live kitchen with a grill and brick oven behind a counter. The Mediterranean-themed menu is limited for now and lets a customer create their own meal – a sandwich or a bowl -- in a step-wise manner.

Make your own healthy meal! Photo: GrabYourMeal/Facebook
Make your own healthy meal! Photo: GrabYourMeal/Facebook

The first step is to choose a bread baked freshly in their brick oven – in case one wants a sandwich -- from whole wheat honey oats, whole wheat seeded, white garlic and white seeded.

Next, you choose your meat from spicy Mediterranean chicken, Middle Eastern chicken, beef meatball, chicken meatball and lamb meatball. The meat is grilled on rock salt.

You move on to select the base from hummus, baba ganoush, spicy salsa, plum sauce and guacamole with avocados, and fresh veggies from iceberg lettuce, pickles, carrot, olives, broccoli, cabbage and beetroot.

The last step is selecting your sauce(s) – they suggest you choose a maximum of three to avoid losing the flavour – from the hot Portuguese peri peri, Turkish mustard paste and yoghurt, Arabian honey and herbs, Middle Eastern tamarind, Lebanese pickle and olive oil, French tarragon, Italian olive oil and basil leaves, Indian mint, green chilli and pomegranate seeds, American BBQ, garlic and Thousand Island. Almost all the sauces are prepared in-house they say.

You can never go wrong with burgers... or maybe you can...
You can never go wrong with burgers... or maybe you can...

I started with a sandwich and asked for exactly the one printed on the menu as it looked really appetising: spicy Mediterranean chicken, carrots, broccoli and hummus in a whole wheat honey oats bread. First bite, second, third and I couldn’t taste a thing, but the bread; it was bland – a letdown.

Maybe it wasn’t the right combo of meat and sauces. The chicken may be cooked well, but lacked the spice it was supposed to have and the sauce didn’t help either. On the plus side, the fresh honey oats bread was absolutely delicious and I had all of it, but it dominated the meat and sauces inside, which I left after a few more bites.

For a little over Rs500 a meal, including baby-baked potatoes and a drink, it’s not too bad provided you get the combination of bread, meat and sauces right.

Next, I tried the meal in a container. For my meat, I requested the staff if I could get small portions of all five meats. For the base I chose hummus, the baba ganoush with fresh pomegranate and the hot salsa; all of the fresh veggies; and the fiery peri peri and Lebanese sauces.

Five meats in a bowl. Sounds yum.
Five meats in a bowl. Sounds yum.

Half of the plastic bowl had fresh pickled veggies and the other half with the bases with the meats sitting on top drizzled with the sauces.

The spicy Mediterranean chicken – slices of a boneless thigh with paprika, cayenne pepper and olive oil – was slightly hard but the flavours were great; the Middle Eastern chicken – shredded thigh with white pepper and seasoning – was succulent and tasty; the minced beef meatballs marinated with mustard grain had a lovely char on top, were cooked through and delicious; the minced chicken meatballs marinated with garlic and parsley were juicy and mildly spicy; and the minced lamb meatballs marinated with mustard grain were tender, aromatic and delicious.

The combination of salsa and peri peri sauce ended up being an explosion of spices, but I’m not complaining. On the whole, the bowl was way better than the sandwich, which the manager claimed was – surprisingly -- more popular. I was told each meal contained a calculated 180 to 200gms of whichever meat was ordered.

Drinks available at Grab Your Meal
Drinks available at Grab Your Meal

To wash down the spices I ordered their refreshing ginger honey drink, which I loved.

GYM soon plan to introduce grilled fish and prawns to their menu, which would be a great addition. Being true to the fast food concept, a meal is ready in less than 10 minutes, however the staff could be a little more helpful and not confuse a customer.

While the concept of eating right and avoiding stuffing yourself up may not be novel, it surely will contribute to encouraging people to adopt healthier lifestyles incorporate healthy, nutritious food to their diets.


Originally published in Dawn, August 27th, 2017

Comments

The learningone Aug 27, 2017 06:19pm
Good to see this. Just be careful of all the processed flour being used and fruit juices and smoothies are not as healthy as they seem.. They can have a high GI and GL.. also make sure that the salads and dips and sauces are not loaded with sugar and salt.. biggest damaging factors
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Ah Aug 27, 2017 09:00pm
It is so strange that such food articles cover only Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. As if other places are non existent in Pakistan.
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Julius Pringles Aug 27, 2017 10:38pm
Finally a restaurant that serves economical and healthy meals.
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Vijay B. Aug 28, 2017 04:58am
Rupees 500 per meal? What percentage of the Pakistani population can afford that on a regular basis? May be the general public in Pakistan is a lot more prosperous than I imagined. A meal like that in a fast food place in the US would cost about $10, which is say twice as much as this one in Lahore. But then aren't things in India and Pakistan supposed to cost a lot less than the official conversion rate of Dollar to Rupees? I guess not any more .
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Ranjana Aug 28, 2017 05:00am
Nice concept aped from the West. However the main point missing here is different genes process different foods differently. Bread is not our main meals. We are roti and rice eaters. Nor is olive oil is our oil. Olive Oil is pushed through the sub continent at large to strengthen Mediterranean Economy. I am a vegetarian but I think a simple kebab on skewer, with lots of local salad would have been a better ‘ On the go’ option.
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mateenagr03 Aug 28, 2017 11:15am
@Ranjana i believe that the point of GYM is to provide you with better healthy alternatives. Are we to assume that, according to your point of view, GYM should prepare its food in 'desi ghee' as it is our oil?
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TAlHA BIN HAMID Aug 30, 2017 06:26pm
@Vijay B. Rs500 per meal is now par for the course and the cost per head is higher even at traditional, local fast food joints. For full service restaurants it hovers around Rs800 to Rs1,000. Also, yes, majority of our urban population is a lot more prosperous than the media will tell you!
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TAlHA BIN HAMID Aug 30, 2017 06:30pm
@Ranjana Wow - never thought along those lines. Thanks, will now think twice before blindly believing that any healthy food from the west will be automatically good for us.
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