Mealtime in the CBD is very often painful on the pocket. The prices of a simple lunch is easily in the double-digits, unless you make your way to a hawker centre or fast food joint. And then you'll have to contend with food that's greasy and less nutritious. It's hard to eat well sometimes.
MealPal is a global meal subscriptions service that offers lunch and dinner options from restaurants at a discount. They launched here in 2016 operating at four business hubs across the island – Buona Vista, CBD, Novena and Orchard. Singapore is the 17th market so far, and we have over 250 restaurants to choose from. Almost my entire office team is on this program because they often have promos for signups that can make a S$12-15 meal as low as $3-5 sometimes. You can even add on hawker meals at S$1 each.
There are a few plans. One month's subscription of 12 meals is about S$95.88, which works out to be S$7.99 each. The signup promos sometimes offer $30-50 off for the first month, making the meals range from $3.82 to S$5.49.
Sign up with my code below and get S$30 off
And since it's Cyber Monday today, you'll get S$50 Lazada voucher if you use my other code below (valid until 30 November 2018 at 11:59pm SGT and cannot be combined with any other promotion).
How do they enable the cheaper meals?
MealPal provides a way for those restaurants to connect with new swathes of customers whilst reducing costs and making operations more efficient, especially during competitive peak hours.
Delivery is not included. You have to pick up the meal at an appointed timeslot but you don't have to queue. Just head to the cashier, scan the QR code to pick up your ready meal, and leave the other customers staring at you enviously as you completely skip the long lines. Seriously convenient for busy people.
Restaurant favourites such as Teppei Syokudo and Tuk Tuk Cha are included as well as niche chains such as Sarnies, Grain Traders and Folks Collective.
MealPal also has WorkPals which lets you see what your colleagues have ordered, and lets you coordinate meals and pickups together. Lunch is a highly social affair in Singapore!
The app looks nicer on iOS, I think. :) You can view the locations by map or listing.
While it's still a little buggy, the team seems to be ironing out kinks as fast as they can, and are responsive to feedback.
Let me show you some of the meals I've had so far. The first photo above is the Gochujiang Salmon bowl (usually S$12.90) from A Poke Theory.
Original Roll & Lemonade from Chunky Lobsters! These are about S$16 each. It's quite a generous portion of lobster, although the roll itself is a little dry.
This is the hefty Mexican Salad from Sarnies, with pulled pork, guacamole, corn salsa and tortilla chips.
There are Asian options galore too, like Thai and Indian. This is the Original Pad Thai from Ocha Fresh Thai at Frasers Tower.
How about Pulled Bak Kut Teh in a salad? From Meat & Green near Boat Quay.
HafuDog's gourmet fusion hot dogs come with a drink as well. The set normally goes for S$11.90 or more. This is the Bahn Bao, inspired by the Vietnamese Bahm Mi.
Berg Burgers' Miss Piggy (cheeseburger with bacon) is a hot favourite on Fridays.
I'll need to travel to go to my favourite ramen, but at least it's here too!
I didn't get to take pics of this but the rendang is jawdroppingly awesome.
You don't have to give up hawker favourites either. Fishball Story! Pick from hawkers at CBD centres such as Lau Pa Sat, Amoy Street Food Centre and further afield to Timbre + at One North.
Don't say I bojio.
