Yummy.ph Easy Meals Everyday

Mondo Juice

I’m the type of girl who likes to shake it.

By that, I don’t mean shakin’ my booty (although I like that kind of shake, too)—I mean I’ve always had a thing for fruit shakes. Back when I was a tween, I fell in love with a Japanese restaurant not for its sushi but for its mango shake, the first one I ever tried with milk. I wanted to learn how to say “awesomeness” in Japanese. Then in college, I was addicted to these supposedly “healthy” shakes peddled by fellow college students who had to put up a business for one of their classes. (They used honey instead of sugar.) As a working girl, I would often have a shake—or what some stalls claim to be a smoothie—as a mid-morning or afternoon snack, my fruit intake for the day.

I couldn’t tell a shake from a smoothie, but my chief complaint for most of them was that there was just too little fruit and too much of everything else (ice, sugar). I loooved the smoothies in New York, and would guzzle them down on my last trip even if it was the beginning of winter because I got a tremendous fruity kick—I could see the dude behind the counter loading up a blender with huge strawberry slices. The calorie info on the boards kind of freaked me out though (400 cal for 20 ounces?!), and told me that those drinks weren’t as healthy as they seemed.

I was thus happy to sample the stuff that Mondo Juice had to offer. At an intimate press gathering, I got to try their fruit-packed smoothies (not shakes, mind you—a shake vs. smoothie showdown in a bit). And when I say “fruit packed,” I am not kidding: each 22-ounce Mondo smoothie has the recommended daily fruit dosage of five servings! They use a third of a pound of fruits—sourced from all over the world and frozen using their Individual Quick Freeze method to ensure freshness—to fill each cup.

While I was there, Mondo’s main man Jonathan Kui gave us a little lesson on shakes and smoothies. Shakes, he said, are essentially lots of ice and syrup and little fruit (sound familiar?). Smoothies, technically, are predominantly made up of fruit, mixed with a bit of juice, ice, yogurt, and/or milk. He differentiates between what they at Mondo call a “runny” (blended too much) and a “chunky” (not blended enough), and says that the Mondo staff has undergone rigorous training to produce the perfect smoothie.

The first thing I sampled: the Raspberry Rush, made up of raspberries, strawberries, low-fat yogurt, and cranberry juice. It was slightly, deliciously tangy and, as Jonathan pointed out, there was “no ice crunchy feeling.” A smoothie, indeed. And it really did taste mostly like fruit. The bonus? It was only 164 calories! Luckily, I could say “awesomeness” in English this time.

I got to try shots of the other stuff, and the one I really liked was the Classico (strawberries, bananas, orange juice, and apple juice). A solo glass would set you back P110—about as much as a cup of cappuccino at your friendly neighborhood coffee shop, but without the caffeine and with all the goodness of fruit!

And then I got to try something I’ve been hearing about for a few years now, something that even made an appearance on "Entourage," one of my fave shows: wheatgrass, a.k.a. green blood (P85). You can see the grass growing in a box on one of the shelves at the store; they don’t have stored grass and really do pluck it fresh. A little shot glass was set in front of me, and I could smell it from a couple of feet away. Kind of like the outdoors after it rains. We toasted to good health then chugged it down. And wheatgrass proved my theory that the best stuff for your body often aren’t the stuff that taste great. It just tasted very plant-y. Jacs, a friend who was there and who enjoyed his shot of wheatgrass, remarked, “You know there’s actually a sweet aftertaste.” But I was too busy washing it down with a smoothie to even get a hint of the sweetness.

I also had a sandwich on the side (turkey, if I remember right!)—pretty good, considering I thought it looked like there was too much bread and too little filling, the sandwich equivalent of a shake. But for something that wasn’t packed, it was surprisingly tasty. The Italian bread was nice and crispy, the cheddar cheese was mild, the honey mustard perfectly balanced. All in all, it made for a satisfying and very healthy lunch.

Mondo Juice is located at the SM Mall of Asia, SM City North EDSA and at the RCBC Plaza.