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| - Acai is the new froyo?
I joined the line for a free acai bowl mostly because I never queue for free anything and thought my bucket list should include doing so just once.
The atmosphere is sort of the mullet of snack shops: Jamba Juice-like in the front and medical-office-like in the back. For a while in the line, I was worried that I'd accidentally queued for free botox or pedicures or weird treatments that involved cucumbers and mild electric currents.
The acai bowl, when finally achieved, was really good. It's sweet-tart in a refreshing way -- it does actually taste roughly the red-purple shade that it is -- as it's basically a fruit smoothie soft-serve. The five-ounce bowl comes with slices of banana, berries, and a sprinkling of granola that's useful for absorbing the last melted bits of soft-serve. In the relentless sun of suburban Tempe, it has the magic taste of feeling about five years younger, deeply wise and earnest (if not actually in touch with the spirit of yoga masters), and in need of flowing garments with fringes.
When not a free offering, these are ungodly expensive. They're probably also little calorie bombs on the same scale as froyo.
If I were at this shopping center again, I'd have another on my own dime because Tempe is, for me, a vast beige suburban wasteland of dehydration that I need Calories of Refreshing Happiness to endure, and these calories are extremely refreshing and happy. If it were where I change buses on the way home from work, though, it wouldn't be a habitual stop.
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