Proper food in a restaurant: what to eat so as not to harm your figure?

The big city lives in a frenzied rhythm. Sometimes work does not stop even at night, and leaving the office after dark has long become a habit of modern man. Great mental and physical load requires a lot from us, but the most important thing is to monitor the quality of the diet. Useful and properly prepared foods can not only energize us, but also help us to stay in great physical shape.

So let’s figure out together what you can and should order in a restaurant. In search of answers we turned to the chef of the pan-Asian cuisine restaurant Bamboo.Bar Sergey Kozhakov, who knows firsthand about haute cuisine, the most unusual preferences of guests, and most importantly about the right and tasty combinations of products.

“For nine years of work I really had to face many moments: both with the preferences of guests and unusual combinations they asked to cook. As a chef, it is very important for me to listen to all this, absorb the information and channel it into the preparation of new dishes on the menu. Speaking of healthy eating, perhaps there are a few rules that I apply in my work:

• Eco-grill. Our restaurant has a unique eco-grill with the possibility of a Russian oven. It is based on a special technology – ceramic surface, which allows you to cook meat and fish practically without oil. Due to the fact that everything is cooked on coals, the dish becomes healthy and juicy without carcinogenic fats that often occur when frying, for example, on an electric grill or simply on a frying pan. So if you see the line “cooked on an eco-grill” on the menu, you can order it!
• Fresh produce. From filet mignon, ribeye steak, large cuts of meat on the bone, Chilean and sea bass, red snapper. We bring in fresh perch specifically from Japan, which is very healthy. It’s quite expensive, but the quality of our food is worth it. I think it was good to try it, don’t spare the finances, because health is more expensive.
• Simple combinations. We also have a lot of salads, combinations, fresh leaves: arugula, lollo rossa, frisée salads. I play it up with tuna (which we bring from Sri Lanka) with our special sauces. Tuna salad with tuna, mango, arugula and mustard dressing is very popular. It would seem that nothing complicated: leaves, quality tuna meat and original sauce. Probably, this is the secret – in quality products, in a light and proper combination.
• Light dressing. Pay attention to the dressing, it often happens that in some places, not in ours, of course(laughs), oil is not spared. And it doesn’t matter that it’s olive oil, it’s all the same. At the same time, even the most familiar sauces are very caloric, their task is to emphasize the taste of the dish, to give richness to this composition. On the other hand, you should realize that sauces are different. We often use dressings that we make literally from under the knife: a combination of galangal root, citronella, lemongrass, lime, soy sauce and maybe olive oil. We make light dressings that pair neatly with all our dishes and don’t harm the figure.”

Together with Sergei, we have selected the top dishes that can be ordered without remorse.

Croissant with salted salmon

Calories: 458 kCal. Protein – 18 g / Fats – 32 g / Carbohydrates – 23 g

Filet mignon

Calories: 735 kCal Protein – 58 g / Fats – 49 g / Carbohydrates – 15 g

Katya Stern, fitness bikini model, nutritionist

“I changed my nutrition 3-4 years ago. I got so interested in this topic that I got an education in America and became a fitness bikini model, now I am competing at the Canadian Championships. Nutrition is very important, especially for a woman. Of course I often have to eat at restaurants with my schedule and rhythm of life, so here are a few rules I follow when ordering a meal.

• Less sugar. Unfortunately, people don’t realize what sugar is. I even have a training – a two week sugar detox. When I asked people during it if they ate sugar, almost everyone said they didn’t. But when I take a list of foods that have sugar, everyone is surprised. The healthy cereals they sell for kids have a lot of sugar in them too. Kvass, morsels – there is sugar everywhere. That’s why I prefer to drink water if I’m thirsty.
• Limit the consumption of dairy products. Now I need to have a snack and regain strength, and I eat scrambled eggs and a light salad, dairy products for the most part I try to exclude from my diet. They can trigger a lot of inflammatory processes in the body. Although if you really want to, you can, but in limited quantities.
• Natural dressing. Also, the concept of “clean eating” that I adhere to is eating without sauces, using only sea salt as a seasoning. It’s good that in a restaurant you can always warn the waiter about this and insure yourself against unpleasant surprises. I also don’t use oil because 1 spoonful is 160 calories, you’ll need at least two spoons for a salad. For these 300 calories, I’d rather eat chicken, which has a lot of healthy protein.
• Calorie count. Ask the waiter about the calorie content of the dish you want to order, if you really watch your figure. Even a regular latte has a lot of calories. We don’t count them. The trend now is that it doesn’t matter how many calories are in a product, the main thing is that it should be healthy. I am against this, because if you eat 100 grams of nuts just as a snack, you will get fat, because they have 600 calories.

And in general, I think that you should not save on your health and eat in fast-foods, snacking on the run. People think that eating healthy is expensive. I think it’s expensive to treat yourself.”

Chia dessert

Calories: 272 kCal Protein – 8 g / Fats-12 g / Carbohydrates – 21 g

Green smoothie

Calories: 135 kCal Protein – 1 g / Fats – 0 g / Carbohydrates – 32 g

Alexei Yashin, Russian ice hockey player, world champion, Honored Master of Sports:

“Now, of course, I already train less, mostly more for myself, to keep in shape, but in nutrition is still not very diverse. I have everything simple: meat, fish or chicken. Now, however, I try not to eat chicken temporarily, so mostly when ordering in a restaurant I choose either fish or meat. In terms of cooking: fish, for example, I prefer steamed or grilled. Here I usually order either Chilean sea bass or salmon steak.

For breakfast I mostly prefer scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs. Sometimes porridge, depending on my mood. I don’t have a need to have different food every day. When you watch your diet, you get used to one thing, you memorize the name: what dish, in what restaurant. Otherwise, it’s easy to slip up and start breaking the regimen.”

Watch your health and diet and remember that even in cafes and restaurants you can find a lot of healthy dishes that will not affect your figure! Let food be not only a source of energy for you, but also an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

We would like to thank Bamboo.Bar Moscow City pan-Asian cuisine restaurant for its help in organizing and conducting the shoot.