Sweetie Salad's chicken and avocado salad. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"Salad is a Western food, but we have introduced Asian culture to our products," said Yu, the other founder. "For example, our beef udon salad is very oriental. We also refer to the 24 Chinese solar terms to choose seasonal local fruits and vegetables."

With a bilingual website, the brand has also attracted a large expatriate crowd in Beijing, Yu said, although the number is hard to tell.

Flashing back to the Spartan themed promotion, the founders explained they just wanted to use the foreign models' images to encourage people to eat healthily, hoping it would help with their marketing strategy. However, the event generated much more attention than they expected and caused a dramatic scene between the police and some models because of the language barrier.

After clearing up the misunderstanding with the police, the two founders realized the event was a great success, although they reminded themselves to be more careful planning the next event.