Salad lunch for two after greasy meals in Gongdeok, Seoul: Why Starve

Bamtol-ssi and I have been chasing good food lately, which meant eating greasy dishes and then spicy, punchy dishes several days in a row. At some point we both started feeling a little bloated and heavy, so today we decided to reset with something healthy! Enter Why Starve Diet Gongdeok Main Branch 🥗

Honestly, the places we usually go to are pretty much all food-tour spots, so this was almost our first time visiting a diet-focused restaurant like this. It didn't feel like just eating a salad — with real protein, vegetables, and even oats or rice included, it ended up being surprisingly filling as a meal!!

What we ordered at Why Starve Diet in Gongdeok

At Why Starve Diet Gongdeok Main Branch we picked two things: the chicken oat protein box and the beef light protein box. The menu was surprisingly varied! There was even a mala flavor, which you don't see at most salad shops, but we really wanted something easy on the stomach today, so we went with these two boxes.

🍗 Chicken oat protein box

First up, what I ate: the chicken oat protein box.

I picked this hoping it would be easy on my stomach that day, and with oats, vegetables, and chicken all together, the composition was more substantial than I expected! Having oats in there especially gave it more chew and fullness than just eating a plain salad.

Oats have that plain, nutty flavor that paired well with the vegetables, and with the chicken added it didn't feel like a flat, boring meal. Kind of like eating barley rice? The chicken wasn't seasoned in a heavy, punchy way either, so it was easy to eat on a day when my stomach felt sensitive, like today. The chicken breast in particular was so moist... I feel like I could do this diet every day....

Best of all, after eating it I didn't feel stuffed or weighed down — just pleasantly full!! It was definitely a different kind of satisfaction than the heaviness I'd been feeling from all the greasy food these past few days 😂

🥩 Beef light protein box

What Bamtol-ssi ordered was the beef light protein box!

It's a lighter composition than the chicken oat protein box, which matched what we were going for that day. Beef definitely has more of that meaty flavor than chicken breast, so it filled in the part that can sometimes feel bland when eating a salad-type dish.

A bite of beef together with the vegetables gave you that clean, savory beef flavor plus the crisp, fresh crunch of vegetables, and it went down really cleanly. There's often a preconception that 'diet meal' means bland and tasteless, but eating it, we found meat and vegetables together were plenty tasty even without heavy seasoning ><

For dressing we went with the store's recommendation and tried both wasabi mayo and sriracha mayo! Personally, I thought the spicy sriracha mayo was tastier!!!

🥗 Is a protein box filling enough for a full meal?

The thing we were most satisfied with that day was exactly this: it wasn't a case of 'ate a salad, still hungry.' The chicken oat protein box had oats for chew and fullness, and the beef light protein box had beef, which gave a real sense of getting proper protein.

Eating vegetables alongside it made it feel distinctly different from just eating meat alone. Since we'd specifically been looking for something without heavy sauces or greasy food that day, eating these plain, clean ingredients one by one felt like it was resetting our palates a little. We liked that feeling of no burden afterward, and of having properly gotten what we needed!!

💰 Protein and vegetables at a fair price

Something else that surprisingly appealed to us was the value. When you try to get both protein and vegetables while eating out, the price tends to creep up quietly, but with one Why Starve protein box, a whole meal was taken care of, which was convenient. Especially for office workers who can't prep their own meals every day, a place like this seemed pretty practical.

"I want to eat healthy today, but I don't want to eat just salad." This is exactly the right fit for that mood!

For us, having eaten way too much greasy food recently and wanting to reset our diet for a bit, it was a good choice too.

🌿 A healthy break between Seoul restaurant-hopping days

We usually love going around eating delicious food, so this was basically our first review of a diet-focused restaurant like this. Having tried it, though, we think it'd be good to visit places like this every now and then. After eating samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), fried food, Chinese food, and dessert like champs every day, sometimes you need chicken, beef, and vegetables to be able to keep going to the next great restaurant.

A healthy meal to slot in between food-tour days! 🥗 If you're in Gongdeok looking for something light but not too skimpy, Why Starve seems like a solid choice. Now that we've eaten this healthy... we've earned the right to eat something delicious at the next place!!!!!!!! 😎😎😎😎😎