I had no idea what this was supposed to be. An Açaí bowl. I knew what Açaí and a bowl are, but I’d never had one of these before. I know, I live under a rock. The closest thing I’ve come to this Jamba Juice, which I absolutely love! I showed my wife and she of course is completely tuned in to all the cool new hip trendy food trends (maybe she should be doing this blog?) told me what these should be like.
It’s basically a smoothie (like Jamba Juice) in a bowl with fruit and granola. I did a quick search on Google and sure enough, there is even a Wikipedia article about it! In Brazil, it’s very popular and it’s called Açaí na tigela which means “Acai in the bowl”. These bowls are super trendy and go north of $10 pretty quickly. They look like the healthiest thing in the world for you so no wonder they are so popular.
So, what I am told by those in the know (aka Mrs. Club Trader Joe’s), is that this is essentially a smoothie in a bowl with some fruit and granola. The directions on the back of the box say to put the bowl in the microwave from the frozen state and nuke it for 45 seconds.
What they fail to mention is that this should be slushy like a smoothie, unfortunately, it does end up that way. Mine seemed to thaw out enough. I could stick my spoon in and it wasn’t a frozen block.
The way that these bowls are served is Açaí slushy is put in the bottom of the bowl. Maybe some fruit is stirred in or arranged on top and then granola is sprinkled on top. That sounds great!
Unfortunately, in this case, blueberries and strawberries, and there must be bananas in 
I actually got an ice cream headache from trying to eat this. I let it warm up a bit but then it started to turn watery and melt. The best thing about this bowl was the granola and coconut shavings toppings.
If it wasn’t for that, I probably would dump it. One other weird thing, the blueberries had turned green. I’m sure it had to been exposed to the acid of the other fruit and bleached the color out. They didn’t taste were different, just looked really weird.
As for the actual taste? It was good! I really liked the blend of fruit and granola crunch. Now I want to try the real thing. But, I’m not sure how Trader Joe’s is going to get around to getting everything to thaw out without turning into a watery mess pretty quickly. This seems like something you could
easily make at home with Trader Joe’s Açaí puree that they sell and some fruit and granola in about the same time it would take to make the bowl from the freezer. This is supposed to be vegan and organic so it has that going for it.
It was an interesting review and one that I am sure many people will want to see, but I won’t be buying this again.
I’m going to give it 5 Bells! I must be missing something here because I just didn’t like it.
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