Is it crazy that I’m a gluten free, dairy free food blogger and I’d never had an açai bowl until a month ago in Miami?
That’s the bottom left picture. It’s a bowl of high antioxidant, tart frozen açai fruit blended with sweet, flavour-masking banana and then poured over chopped fresh fruit. I ate this at Pura Vida, a healthy açai bowl, fresh juice and smoothie place at the southern part (I think) of Miami Beach. It usually comes with granola and toasted coconut on top, and you can often request different fruit than the banana-strawberry-pineapple-kiwi medley seen above, but the granola wasn’t gluten free, and dessicated coconut just isn’t my idea of a party.
Why did it take me so long to eat an açai bowl?
They’re everywhere these days. Since eating my first, I’ve seen them in Vegas and all over San Francisco, but I never bought one at home. The high price tag the couple of times I saw them in Montreal probably dissuaded me, along with the weather. I blame cold Montreal winters. We don’t need a bowl of tropical fruit when it’s -30˚C. And we definitely don’t have fresh açai growing nearby. You can find the pulp frozen in the freezer section of health food stores, which is how it’s found in California and Florida, too, but a lot more easily.
What’s açai?
If you’ve never heard of açai, don’t feel bad. In fact, you can probably forget about it and focus on the haskap berry (it’s the next blueberry or cherry…or açai berry anyway), and it’s grown in Canada now (Saskatchewan and Quebec via Siberia, I believe). So the carbon footprint is lower, I guess.
Maybe when the price goes down on haskap I’ll freeze it and blend it with bananas and dump it over other imported fruit that I love. Until then, I’ll keep an eye out for açai in the grocery store. Because as long as those strawberries and pineapple pieces and kiwi are in season, this is one delicious dish.
I only had one day in Miami, so I needed to make the most of it. Immediately after walking about 10 blocks down white sandy coast in the blazing heat while wearing cold-proof Montreal leggings (this was mid-April and I’d left my frigid province at 3a.m. that morning), I melted into my bowl of açai at Pura Vida. It seemed like the stereotypical healthy South Beach thing to eat.
Then, since I can’t eat Cubano sandwiches (bread, probably also dairy), I figured I’d cram in a second meal and go for the next best thing to pork-heavy sandwiches: tacos.
Tacos at Taquiza
At Taquiza, the “house-nixtamalized” corn tortillas are made from responsibly sourced landrace corn from Michoacán, Mexico, says the website. The masa is ground daily and shaped by hand. I ordered one stuffed with chicken and another with huitlacoche (that cool Mexican mushroom fungus stuff so popular now aka corn smut). Then I filled up at the salad bar of add-ons including radishes, cilantro, and a couple salsas. This is Mexican street food down with high quality ingredients right in the middle of touristy South Beach.
It’s a couple blocks away from The Carlyle and the other hotels and restaurants blasting salsa music across the beach, where fish bowl size plastic margarita glasses are larger than my head. (“This is why we’re fat,” kept popping into my head as people inhaled giant platters of fries and sandwiches and downed what was probably 1000 empty calories of frozen pink-dyed sugary drinks with umbrellas sticking out of them.)
Happy hours seem to be day-long affairs that start before lunch, and the afternoon pool parties have longer lines than clubs (and just as many frat boys).
The whole South Beach area is clean and tourist-friendly, with people in bikinis and towels coming out of fancy hotels and hostels alike, and, like Vegas, an air of luxury at the swanky places and a cheap feel at the more plastic-feeling ones. I wasn’t there long enough to understand why that is and maybe my opinion would change after more time in the rest of Miami, but for a one-day-only trip, it was fascinating.
South Beach is an express bus ride from the airport. You buy a cheap roundtrip ticket and jump on and off at any stop along the beach. It took about 30 minutes and cost something like $2.50 to get to the beach. It was incredibly convenient. And it was worth it for the sand, the heat, the palm trees and the tropical vacation feel along.
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