You hear diet food and we think veggies and a grilled piece of rather dry chicken. You hear a diet food restaurant and you immediately assume a high-end catering service costing you a little fortune.

But Diet House is a nice, little surprise for all the weight and health conscious out there: It’s oil-free, planned and supervised by nutritionists and uses whole-wheat flour only, dairy-free ingredients and fructose sugar.It has the calories of each item enlisted next to it with the highest one in calories being the Picatta Mushroom main course at 370.

We were hungry at 9pm and didn’t want to indulge in junk food but couldn’t be bothered to go through the hassle of cooking after a long day at work. So despite being skeptical, we scrolled through the Diet House menu and, seeing the average prices were those of premium fast-food but affordable, took a leap of faith and ordered chicken caesar salad, a hamburger and a cheese-lovers pizza.

What we loved most about menu is that each item had the calories listed next to the price. The burger had 270 calories, the pizza 340 and the salad 140. And as much as we loved knowing we’re having a meal that costs far less in calories than anything we ever ordered in, we were not expecting much — how can a pizza have 340 calories and still tastes decent?

In less than 40 minutes our order came and we paid LE90 for the lot.

The chicken were grilled to perfection, the dressing was made of yoghurt and light-cheese and the crouton were made of wholewheat and toasted not fried. It was rich and fresh but you can tell the dressing wasn’t the classic caesar salad one — which doesn’t mean it wasn’t as delicious, but you should know what to expect.

The burgers were juicy and the quality of meat really showed, we even loved the brown bread bun and it wasn’t dry in the least bit. The pizza — to our surprise — was also made of wholewheat but truly tasted like any yum pizza we ever had.

Overall, we were really pleasantly surprised by Diet House and we are definitely ordering it again and again — maybe next time we will order the low-calories, dairy and sugar-free cheesecake too.

So go ahead and indulge in a guilt-free lunch at work today.

Diet House delivers to Dokki, Heliopolis, Manial, Mohandessin, Nasr City, Zamalek and Agouza through their hotline, 16513.

Diet House Heliopolis • 114 Thawra • 16513

Diet House Heliopolis • 13 Gehad Street • 104 Gameat El Dowal • 16513