What the hell is KFC doing? The Chinese chicken chain has opened a green-and-healthy store in Hangzhou called K Pro, with quinoa salads, salmon sandwiches and QR codes in place of menus. Has it lost its mind? Is it a desperate attempt to stay relevant? Or is it the future of fried chicken in China? On a recent pass through Hangzhou, I had to stop in and find out.

To start with, the place looks nothing like a KFC. It’s got that modern industrial look with cool neon slogans. Look.

Not that anyone notices because they are all glued to their phones. That’s not a shot at our shitty modern-day attention spans but a built-in part of the experience. There’s no place to order, except the place you spend all of your time anyway – your phone. All the seats have QR codes, which you have to scan just to be able to look at a real menu with prices (not the Scrabble board wall, which you’ll want to do, because this ain’t no cheap date KFC). Lunch for three cost me 280 rmb, and consisted of a green salad with quinoa (not bad), a salmon sandwich (not good), an Asahi draft (never bad), “Buffalo” chicken wings (not even close), sweet potato fries (quite good) and Hokkaido soft-serve ice cream (the winner). Or at least that’s what I thought. One of my friends said she was going for tea afterwards, and came back with a takeaway jianbing. Clearly, she was not convinced. So will the rest of China be? Is this the superfuture we’ve been promised, an evolutionary step towards easily accessible healthy food available without ever having to talk to a human, or is it just a middle-aged brand crisis? I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it. The bar codes stuck to the side of every single food item don’t help dispel the feeling that behind this lovely, grassy green sheep is the same old corporate wolf that stalks us at every train station, airport and shopping mall. It all tasted like it belonged in an airport, except for the ice cream, which is really good but also available at some KFC shops in Shanghai. So will Shanghai get to experience the green green future that is K Pro? Too early to say. I asked KFC. They won’t say. Until then, if you want to ponder the fast-casual quick-serve market segment and its potential for greenwashing, you’ll have to make a pilgrimage down south. K Pro is located on floor B1 of Hangzhou's Wanxiang Chengdi Mall, at 701 Fuchun Lu.