I admit, the single-food-pop-up craze might be getting a little ridiculous now, but don't let that stop you trying this place. Taking residency for a month in the same space as the Porridge Cafe used to live is a new acai pop-up. Yep, acai as in the superfood-of-the-moment purple berry from Brazil.
They've shuffled the room around, still with the light airy feel and similar wooden seating and stools as the Porridge place, but also a new lick of paint and gorgeous 'Oshun' sign on the wall made out of string that I was coveting for my living room. The compact menu is up on a blackboard, complete with a very sweet guy waiting to explain it to us.
They blend together a set of base ingredients with acai berry pulp to form a fabulously deep purpley coloured cross between yogurt and ice cream, then add more tasty toppings. It's cold and eaten from a bowl with a spoon. There are 5 bowl suggestions up on the board but you can mix and match ingredients as you like to play around with these.
It was a tricky choice - even the classic Oshun Native with banana and honey and topped with granola sounded good, but we couldn't resist the more exciting ones. I went for the Oshun Tang, blending in sour cherries, raspberries, lime juice and honey, and topping with spelt muesli, chia seeds and juicy strawberries. My sister had the Maya which was the healthy choc choice I suppose, with raw cacao, orange zest and other fruit whizzed up with acai, and toppings of popcorn, blueberries and some crumbled choc chip cookie.
It was amazing. At £6 a berry bowl the sceptics will probably say it's just an overpriced smoothie in a bowl, but I'd pay it again. It tasted so fresh and delicious, with the added bonus of imagining all the antioxidant magic doing your body some good. We also got to chat to the lovely lady whose brainchild it was, who saw a gap for it in the UK after seeing how popular it was among street vendors in Brazil. She made us feel even better after telling us about the vitamin-rich pulp they use rather than the powder or pasteurised juice forms, in order to get the most health benefits out.
We loved what they're doing here - good clean novelty fun that gave us a boost for the whole afternoon. I hope they do really well. read more