{"id":4205,"date":"2024-06-07T04:24:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T20:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/?p=4205"},"modified":"2024-09-21T05:44:12","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T21:44:12","slug":"l-a-chow-erewhon-tonic-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/2024\/06\/l-a-chow-erewhon-tonic-bar\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Chow: Erewhon Tonic Bar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We tried the Hailey Bieber smoothie. Is it worth the hype? <\/h2>\n\n\n
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If you are not on TikTok,<\/a> you might never have heard about Erewhon<\/a><\/strong>, the pricy “health food” store in Southern California, which has gone viral for its smoothies. That’s where<\/a> my daughter heard the super-expensive Hailey Bieber<\/a> smoothie<\/a>, which she sort-of-but-it’s-too-expensive-but-if-you-pay-for-it wanted to try. I was game. Sure, the 20-oz smoothie was nineteen-dollars-plus-tax-and-tip<\/em>, but I figured we weren’t paying for the smoothie, we were paying for the experience. And really, an experience for three people for a fifteen minute drive and a bit over $20 is not bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Erewhon in Calabazas was buzzing at mid-morning in a Wednesday. Apparently, everyone who wasn’t stuffing themselves at Porto’s<\/a>, was getting some pretend healthy food and expensive smoothies here. Or, really, being seen. While middle age women shopped inside, the outside patio was filled with the young-enough-to-be-carded crowd. Beautiful people, because everyone is beautiful when they’re young.

I only had a quick look at the Erewhon market itself as my too-ashamed-to-be-with-mom daughter rushed us into the Tonic Bar at the far side of the market. The market looked like a smaller version of Sprouts. The Tonic Bar, like your typical cafe counter at any supermarket. I didn’t get a chance to look at prices, but looking at them online, they seem in line with Whole Foods or even the organic produce at Safeway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the smoothie, which seemed outrageously expensive at $19, didn’t end up being so. Or rather, it turns out that all smoothies everywhere are outrageously expensive. Smoothies at Jamba Juice are $10 each – which is the same price as the 20-oz basic smoothies at Erewhon. The Haley Bieber smoothie is so much more because it has a lot of very weird ingredients, plus a famous name attached to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ingredient wise, the Haley Bieber smoothie has “Malk almond milk, organic bananas, organic strawberries, organic avocado, organic dates, organic maple syrup, Vital Proteins vanilla collagen, vanilla stevia, sea moss, organic coconut creme, Driscoll’s Organic Strawberry Glaze”. The smoothie was originally released in conjunction with Haley Bieber’s skin product line and it’s suppose to help you achieve better skin – I’m guessing through its minute quantities of collagen and sea moss. Erewhon seems to keep the nutritional information of its smoothies a secret, but this one seems to have about 700 calorie<\/a>s. With sugar from the maple syrup and the strawberry glaze in addition to that naturally occurring in the fruits, it’s also not fit for those in a low-sugar diet. It’s an unhealthy treat, and that’s how it should be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But ultimately, it’s all about the taste and this smoothie is… not bad. Actually, I enjoyed it. It tastes like very light, not too sweet strawberries and cream ice cream with a ‘green’ undertone – I’m guessing from the sea moss. I liked how smooth and not-icy it was. It made me realize that what I dislike about smoothies is how icy they are, and what I dislike about shakes, is that they are too thick and not cold enough. This one had a thin, cold, smooth mouthfeel I really enjoyed. I also liked the strawberries and cream flavor and the fact that despite it having lots of sugar, it didn’t taste too sweet. Now, the colder something is, the less sweet it tastes, so that makes sense. And I liked the green flavor in the background. It wasn’t too forward but it gave it an ‘adult’ bitterness that made it feel more refreshing. I don’t make smoothies myself, but I was thinking about trying to make one by combining ice cream, milk (or almond milk), ice and some matcha powder and blending it very, very well.

Would I get it again? Not for $19 and 700-calories, but I’m glad I tried it once – and shared it with two other people.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We tried the Hailey Bieber smoothie. Is it worth the hype? If you are not on TikTok, you might never have heard about Erewhon, the pricy “health food” store in Southern California, which has gone viral for its smoothies. That’s where my daughter heard the super-expensive Hailey Bieber smoothie, which she sort-of-but-it’s-too-expensive-but-if-you-pay-for-it wanted to try. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[160,651,155,28,338,652,653],"class_list":["post-4205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cafes-bakeries-ice-cream","category-shops-markets","tag-chain-restaurants","tag-erewhon","tag-los-angeles","tag-reviews","tag-san-fernando-valley","tag-smoothies","tag-tiktok","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}