Apparently, they originated from New Orleans in 1973 and has since expanded regionally.
Did not know that they are a US brand because I only knew of them when Nic and I went to Korea for a trip and they seemed really popular there. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to try the smoothie there in Korea but lucky for us, now that it's open in Singapore, we can finally get to see why the Koreans are raving about it.
So Nic and I excitedly went to one of the outlets at 313 Somerset. It's located at level one, right beside the entrance of the MRT escalator.
The first thing that we saw was that there were many comfortable seats around with wooden deco. The next was the menu with many different kinds of smoothies, wraps and salads. The menu has the amount of calories of the food/drink written right next to it; a trend that is very apparent in appearance-conscious Korea but which is rare in Singapore. The only down side to it is that there are not enough pictures to capture the attention of customers at once. We also got lost in all the food science lingo such as turbinado (which is a kind of brown sugar; googled), probiotic, antioxidant and collagen. These were the enhancers you could add to the drink to give your day a boost. The drinks also came in sizes of S, M and L. It was a lot of information to process at once so we decided to just choose a medium sized most popular drink there. The Angel Food.
Ok so... wow. Angel Food must be really good since well its food fit for angels right? But actually, it's just banana and strawberry, non-fat milk and soy protein. Taken this description from their website: "Angels have to be light on their wings—those things are delicate. In that case, they’d have no problem feasting on this fantastic low-fat blend of banana and strawberries. It’s creamy, delicious and fit, well, for an angel." Hmm.... ok. So we went ahead and placed the order and got a cute queuing device that alerts you when your order is ready. This is another very popular trend in Korea especially in cafes.
We waited for about 5 minutes and voila the device started vibrating and giving off alien lights and alerted me that my Angel Food is ready. When we got the drink, we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of thought they had in the packaging. Instead of a plastic cup, the smoothie was actually served in a styrofoam cup! This actually helps to keep the smoothie cold for longer periods of time.
The taste was exquisite. Sweet but not too overwhelming, with hints of banana and strawberry. It totally changed my viewpoint of healthy food. It was so yummy that we regretted sharing a medium sized cup. We could totally understand why it is the most popular drink there. Upon opening the cup (after many tasteful slurps), inside was a gooey-slushy mix of goodness.
The drink was well worth the price - $6.70 for a medium cup. Made us feel so healthy that we immediately went for ice-cream. -.- Anyway, we will definitely return and try their other signature drinks and maybe tinker around with the enhancers in future.
For: Health-conscious people who do not want to sacrifice taste for healthy food or just ordinary people like me.
-Jem
313@Somerset #01-14/15
313 Orchard Road, S(238895)
Tel: 68362203
Opening Hours:
8am to 10pm on Sun-Thur & Public Holidays
8am to 11pm on Fri-Sat & Eve of Public Holidays
http://www.smoothieking.sg
