Zen Sushi to GO | Healthy lunch on the go
A satisfying healthy lunch is hard to come by unless you're in your own kitchen. Zen Sushi to GO has all the answers.
Rachel Zammit Cutajar
Two weeks into January and we can at least hope the New Year’s resolutions are going strong. But juggling a busy life and getting healthy meals in is not as easy as it sounded as we were munching on mince pies around the Christmas table and promising we were going to have a healthy start to the New Year.
Sometimes you just didn’t have time to prepare lunch before you left the house, sometimes you think you’re going to make it home in time for lunch, sometimes there just aren’t any ingredients in the house to make a healthy meal. When times like these strike, you need to have a few tricks up your sleeve for a healthy lunch on the go.
How healthy is sushi? Is it a good fast food option when you’re trying to stick to a healthy diet? The truth is it depends what you order. Each sushi roll contains approximately one cup of rice, so at 240 calories just for the rice. Add the fatty fish and sauces on the top and it’s very easy to make this a high calorie meal.
Go for sashimi options, rolls without rice, rolls without sauce or vegan options and you can make this a healthy stop on a busy day. Zen Sushi to GO does just what it says – quick and easy sushi take out (although you can also eat there if you like) offering a wide range of nigiri, sashimi, temaki, hosomaki, futomaki and uramaki. And if you’re not too keen on sushi (to be honest what are you doing at a place called Sushi to GO) you can settle for a selection of Japanese inspired salads – beef, chicken, salmon, tuna or wakame seaweed.
They also have set packs which are convenient if you’re not really sure what to order, or if you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to peruse the menu. I went for the Zen Fit pack which contained one vegan uramaki roll, the midori, which contained avocado, cucumber, goma wakame and chives, all neatly wrapped in rice paper. An uramaki roll is one that is ‘inside out’, so the seaweed in on the inside while the rice is on the outside. The second roll in the dish was a rice-free version, the yen roll. This futomaki roll (a traditionally thicker roll as it is stuffed with more ingredients) is stuffed with salmon, carrot, goma wakame, iceberg lettuce, cucumber and avocado – it’s no wonder you don’t need rice in this one, there wouldn’t be place to put the rice anyway! For 12 pieces of sushi, this platter contains under 250 calories so fits in perfectly with the New Year’s Resolution thing.
As I had already done a run that morning and had a gym session scheduled for the afternoon I decided to treat myself and go for a third roll, the dynamite roll. Another one from the uramaki range, this one contains tuna tartare, sriracha sauce, sambal oelek, cucumber and is dotted with black sesame seeds on the outside.
Feeling quite satisfied – both from the hunger and that I managed to fit in a healthy lunch on the go, I left Zen Sushi to GO, knowing that I’d be returning more than once throughout the winter when hunger strikes and I want to stick to a healthy diet.
What I ate
Zen Fit which contains Midori Roll and Yen Roll
Dynamite Roll
Total: €17:25, excluding drinks
Address: Pavi, Triq Manwel Dimech, Qormi
Tel: 21372942
Address: Pama, Valletta Road, Mosta
Tel: 21424433
Address: SkyParks Business Centre, International Airport, Luqa
Tel: 21380288
Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 11:00 – 22:30
