PUBLISHING DATE: JUNE 2014
(Original Submission)
THE HEALTH BUFF: JUJU EATS
It’s a common scene in the Juice.ph office – lunch break strikes, rumbling tummies craving for every sense of what satiation denotes, only to negate the need with convenience store crap. It’s not like Chino Roces Extension is devoid of anything to eat. The entire strip is actually a destination for culinary finds. But for the street’s mainstays like us, the usuals, from home-cooked to bistro to exotic, can get old (and pricey) for everyday fare. Eventually the body hankers for what is essentially good rather than the siesta-inducing specials we’ve been habituated into. Chino Roces’s gastronomic landscape changed in a snap when JuJu Eats opened for that very reason, and it’s been receiving the tip of the hat even beyond the streets of Makati.
JuJu Eats is all about the ubiquitous salad, served typically or wrapped in tortilla, by Kat and David Azanza of the JuJu Cleanse Program fame. Though veering away from the traditional and boring, JuJu isn’t riding the overcharged healthy food trend bandwagon. Regular servings range from P185 to P410, while half servings and wraps are around P135 to P220. Granted that shopping for your own ingredients cost less than an average priced JuJu salad, we doubt that your boring greens + dressing combi can compare to their creative renditions: over 5,000 possible mishmashes at that. Try equating that to Wendy’s or Hypermart’s wilted lettuce with a side of thousand island and cough spit.
With a concept that’s both uncomplicated and distinctive, JuJu Eats has generated a buzz that transcends the reception of vegetarians and health buffs. Even the ambiance is unintimidating, with the citrus green and orange fast-food assembly line theme matching their fresh offerings. Ingredients are harvested from Kat’s family’s farm in San Benito (yes, the founders of the highly acclaimed wellness spa & resort The Farm at San Benito) and prepared daily. The one server per diner rule ensures cleanness and keeps the pace swift yet personal, ideal for the office crowd that packs the diner every lunch hour. The queue can get pretty long during this time and parking’s close to nil, so plan ahead.
Getting down to their menu, don’t expect meager portions for the lettuce-eating-stick-thin-model. It’s largely difficult to put their indulgent and flavorful salad choices into the “guilt-free” context. Take for example Juice.ph’s favorite Ay Caramba! (P185 regular, P135 half or wrap) – greens with grilled chicken, nacho chips, pickled jalapeno, cheddar cheese, salsa, roasted bell pepper, kidney beans, and Ay Caramba! dressing. Imagine that wrapped in white flour or whole-wheat tortilla and it’s enough to convert carnivores to the, errr, light side. Don’t breakdown just yet, nitpickers with calorie counters. No need to obsess about how much fat their dressings contain. Check out the JuJu Eats website for an easy reference to their salad’s GL, salt, carbs, cholesterol, and gluten content.
We may have JuJu Eats to thank for graduating the lowly salad from being a seasonal crash diet staple to a daily cravable meal. It’s enough to create pretentious-Starbucks-fanatic types in us (you know him, the guy who glowers at new customers and yells his “usual” while enunciating his preference for half-and-half from full cream), but we don’t give a damn. I may even be the first in line screaming, “Crispy Catfish, no cilantro and make that mint instead, exchange nam pla dressing with double the amount of balayan dressing… chop chop!!”
