LUNCH AT CHOP'D

Quite a few years ago I was in the Canary Wharf shopping centre, shooting a commercial for O2, and one of the assistants went to get our lunch. She came back with boxes full of fresh, locally sourced goodies from a place called Chop'd and I've never forgotten it. It was such a novel concept to be able to choose your own ingredients and create such a brilliant salad for lunch.

Fast forward about 8 years, and Chop'd now have 9 stores across Central London. I was invited to try a few of their current salad combos for myself and popped into the store in Selfridges to see what's changed since my last visit.

I actually chose to get take away rather than eat in on the 4th floor of Selfridges, so that the boy and my vegan friend visiting from Brighton could also get to try Chop'd's food. So I popped into the Chop'd in the Selfridges Food Hall instead and picked up the following-

Smokey Pinto Bean Chilli with supergrain for the vegan (Pinto beans, red kidney beans, tomatoes, onion, carrot, red peppers, chipotle puree, chilli flakes, garam masala, garlic, supergrain and coriander):

Pulled pork and roasted pancetta salad for the boy (mixed leaves, sweet potato, roast pancetta, pulled pork, red onion confit, cherry tomatoes & chives):

And the Parma ham and mozarella salad for me, which had leaves, pasta, sundried tomatoes, mozarella, parma ham and sunflower seeds:

At Chop'd you can pick any of their pre made salads or stews, but you can also create your own, picking individual ingredients to be mixed together for you. They have a variety of dressings you can add to your salads - I picked up the pesto dressing for mine and a creamy blue cheese dressing for the boy's pulled pork salad, which came included in the price.

All 3 dishes were really delicious - you can tell that the ingredients have been well sourced and are really fresh, and the combinations they put together are really great. And at £16 for all 3 I think they're really good value. There are lots of high street food chains that do pre prepared salads for around the same price, but the ones at Chop'd are bigger and better than any others I've come across.

To find your nearest Chop'd or have a look at their menus you can visit their website here. If you're after quick, fresh and plentiful food then I really recommend checking them out.