After lots of shopping and losing track of time, a friend told me she wanted something cheap and healthy when I asked her what she wanted to do for lunch. Wow, no one has ever said that to me before; it really threw me for a loop. Finally I came up with the answer of Thr1ve, I’ve never eaten there before but I know they have paleo inspired food which would still be serving food around the dead zone that is between lunch and dinner (it was around 2:30pm ish). 
My friend couldn’t help but get one of these. They looked cute but all I could think of was that Donut King was just a few steps away.
There were a lot of new things for me to read but the basic gist is that you choose a ‘base’ consisting of up to two ingredients and then choose a protein. Bases include leafy green, brown rice, baby spinach leaves and sweet potato mash. When we asked to see how big a ‘main bowl’ was, I think the server said it was the same sized bowl but the calories were halved in an ‘entree size’ (??).
I ordered baby spinach with sweet potato mash and the teriyaki salmon for my protein in a main sized portion ($12.90). It came out pretty quickly, I imagine a lot of the food is pre-made. The sweet potato mash reminded me of hospital food but at least it was served warm unlike the rest of the dish. I guess it was good, it made me content and the desire to eat was no longer there. Comparing to the other proteins that my friends chose, I preferred the salmon.
This might be good with for body but their packaging didn’t look very environmentally friendly when there weren’t any recycle bins around.
Baby spinach, brown rice with chargrilled chicken.
Brown rice, leafy greens with pulled beef.
Venue: Thr1ve
Address: Canberra Centre (opposite Supabarn) Bunda Street, Civic, Canberra 2600
Phone: (02) 6247 5555
TALES OF A CONFECTIONIST 