Every day at lunch, you stare forlornly into your wallet, realising you can only afford to spend a maximum of $15. With no other alternatives in sight, you trudge to the hawker centre, toss your tissue packet onto the first available empty seat and get in line. Fast forward 20 years and you’re probably diabetic and on the fast-track to heart disease thanks to all that MSG, oil, salt and god knows what.
Why fight the sweaty crowds when you can get food delivered directly to your office—at prices that are lower than what the typical CBD restaurant is charging? Food delivery has proven to be quite popular amongst office workers in the CBD, and best of all you can get a relatively healthy meal for under $15. Here’s whom to call.
Salads: Spinacas
Spinacas serves up salads with tantalising names like “Moroccan spiced chicken” for $9 to $11. The pictures look quite delicious and all recipes were created by the company’s owner, which makes for a rather unique experience. Free delivery for orders of at least $30 to areas as far away as Pasir Panjang and Joo Chiat, personally ferried to you by the spunky owner on her Vespa.
Healthy fare: Food Matters
So you want to tuck in to a nice, piping hot plate of chicken rice, but you’re already going bald from all that MSG. What’s a hungry office worker to do? Food Matters offers local favourites like Hainanese chicken rice and nasi lemak as well as creations like lentil salad and Moroccan meatballs, but made with fresher, healthier ingredients like brown rice and lean cuts of meat.
A one-month subscription costs from $40 to $140 a month, depending on how many meals you order, which works out to be $7 to $10 per meal. Delivery is free.
Thai food: Thai to Go
You’re a monster if you don’t like Thai food. Thai to Go sends Thai lunch bentos directly to your office, costing between $9.95 to $12.95. A la carte dishes cost from $6.95 to $10.95 and include mango salad and beef salad. The delivery charge is $3 and the minimum order depends on your area.
Surprise menus: Grain
If you need novelty to keep your tastebuds salivating, Grain’s everchanging menu will appeal to you. Meals cost from about $9.95 to $12.95. At the moment their menu includes a mouthwatering chiraishi don and sous-vide lamp and pepper relish on couscous, but you can expect that to change very soon. Everything looks so good that you might find yourself logging in every week just to see what’s new.
Good old zi char: TingKat Delivery
If nothing tempts you the way a good zi char spread does, hit up TingKat Delivery. The company delivers Chinese home-cooked favourites like sweet and sour fish, braised tofu and melon pork rib soup. The menu changes each week.
You can opt for lunch or dinner delivery, and a month’s subscription will get you 20 meals. The rate per person begins at $147 a month, working out to $7.35 a meal. The more people you get them to deliver to, the less you pay—if you’ve got 6 mouths to feed, you pay just $3.60 per person per meal.
Have you ever used a meal delivery service? Tell us how it went in the comments!