Wahu - Manchester

I'm always on the look out for new lunch spots and despite the initial impressions of Wahu being pretty poor, I waited for the hype to die down and any teething problems to sort themselves out before heading down to give it a try for myself. Wahu is the latest spot on The Avenue in Spinningfields and offers healthy express food to eat in or take away. 

From the outside Wahu looks exceptionally cool and certainly very enticing. Lots of bright colours everywhere, huge glass windows, neon lights, giant WAHU wording everywhere - I was feeling pretty optimistic about things as I headed in as it was certainly very busy. 

The range of options is fairly broad but like another high street chain you may be familiar with - you choose a base (the carbs), then a protein, then your extras (salad bits) and a topping (the sauce). Subway anyone? For some reason Quinoa is 75p extra (healthy types need to dig deep). 

I went for the "box of the day" which was Vietnamese chicken salad with red onion, carrot and light soy sauce. I didn't notice until I got back to the office as I wasn't really paying attention whilst I took photos (entirely my own fault) but this included absolutely nothing of any substance carbs wise - I ended up with a box of plain salad leaves, with a small portion of red onion, the same paltry portion of grated carrot and then a handful of over cooked dry chicken. Soy sauce had been added but not attempt had been at mixing so the sauce just sloshed around at the bottom underneath the leaves and only really made an impact once i'd eaten away at about half the leaves by which time everything that was left was starting to get lathered in the soy sauce making everything exceptionally salty.

Honestly it was appalling, i'd estimate about £0.30 for £4.95 and around 150 calories, I was so hungry I had to stuff down some Tesco salt and vinegar mini-donuts to keep me alive for the afternoon - totally backfire of my attempt at healthy eating. I'm all for healthy eating but I was absolutely starving. Despite only opening a month ago, the website shows protein shakes (which I wanted to try) but they weren't on the drinks board in the restaurant so I ended up with a cucumber, spinach and pineapple 'raw and fresh' juice which tasted exactly like every other one of those raw juice drinks you've ever drank. 

Overall this was absolutely terrible, verging on cynical for the paltry amount of food I received for the money and there is no way i'd ever consider going back. If i'd have not gone for the special of the day i'd have been looking at nearly £10 for a really poor salad and a drink. Not even a dessert or snack for that price is verging on daylight robbery. Absolute dross.