Affordable, Healthy Salad Restaurant Walad Chaan Warms You up in the CBD

Pizza Cup has just ended and Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve are just around the corner. It’s not that my inner vegetarian just woke up, but the urge to put something healthy in my body is strong as it is fleeting, between these periods of binge eating and drinking. I know we just wrote about the heartwarming and sizable salad at 2Fulfill in Sanlitun, but we now feel obligated to find something similar for those working or living in the CBD. And so we found it: Walad Chaan.

Just two doors away from the Paradise Yunnan restaurant we recently visited in World City, Walad Chaan looked a bit empty during the lunch peak, even with its spacious and central café-style location. You order from the counter at the door, where you have your pick of four kinds of rice (RMB 32-38 for small, and RMB 35-42 for large), and a dozen varieties of salads (RMB 32-48), including beef, chicken, salmon, hummus, tuna, and vegetarian (yes, we realize hummus is vegetarian, too). Similar to 2FulFill, every item here displays the nutrition information, from calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat, and weight of the food.

To suit the cold weather, Walad is supposed to be a portmanteau of "warm" and "salad." While we've always felt those two words could never be a good thing side-by-side, Walad set out to prove us wrong. Not only is the salad warm, but the service, too – you'll be handed warm barley tea and a small receiver to notify you when your dish is ready. We opted for the “hot chicken” salad (RMB 35), featuring carrot, cucumber, broccoli, cherry tomato, lettuce, lotus, corn, chickpeas, and hot roasted chicken paired with sesame sauce. The chicken was warm and juicy with a crisp skin that was luxurious compared to fast food places, but it dropped the ball with the hard-boiled egg, which came in half. The menu clocked this salad in at 623 kcal for what I consider a mediocre potion. Despite the less-than-overwhelming size of the dish, there were delivery guys constantly running in and out, so someone must be into it.

If just salad can’t satisfy you, go for their house-made yogurt (RMB 30-33), or juices (RMB 25-27). With the reliable salad and nice service, Walad Chaan doesn't have to worry about how to elbow its way in among the spicy and heavy foods around – it stands out naturally.

Walad Chaan
Daily 10.30am-8.30pm. E13, E Tower, World City, 8 Jinhui Lu, Chaoyang District (8559 7578)
朝阳区金汇路8号中骏世界城E座E13

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Email: tracywang@thebeijinger.com
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Photos: Tracy Wang