Takeaways / Reviews
Superfoods – review
There’s a scene in Horizon, the new mini sci-fi series set in Bristol, where a supermarket gets ransacked as an alien spacecraft hovers menacingly over the city.
I was reminded of this when seeing the rows and rows of empty shelves in Superfoods. It’s as if this new business on Park Street has forgotten that they are meant to be a shop as well as a place to grab a quick healthy lunch to take away.
There’s the odd lonely tub but apart from that – nothing. I was assured that shop orders are now being made for the retail side of things to open this weekend, but the emptiness currently doesn’t present the most welcoming feel.
is needed now More than ever
It’s not the only baffling element to Superfoods.
Walk through the door and next to the empty shop on your right, there is a long wooden counter on your left. Thank goodness for the attentive staff because without one asking whether I was okay, I would have walked straight out again thinking that I had gone to some kind of concept art installation.
There are no signs, no arrows and no menus, only three cardboard tubs of varying sizes, which someone has written prices on with a felt tip pen.
Start on one side of the counter and there are the carbs. Work your way round and there are the proteins, followed by the salads. Depending on how much you want to pay, tubs cost from £4.50 to £8.50. The bigger the tub, the more carbs, protein and salad options you’re allowed.
What the choices of food are remains a mystery, however, thanks to the lack of the signs and I could barely make out the options either as the glass covering them had clouded up.
After my server patiently explained what each choice was, my medium box eventually contained quinoa, pasta, beef in orange sauce, spicy chicken, kale, grated carrot and sliced cucumber.
It was quite a mix – following in the footsteps of Wok to Walk next door piling high various foodstuffs into one bulging container. The quinoa in my own tub was clinging like limpets onto the meat; the chicken was too dry but the beef was juicy and tender. The salad options meanwhile were no better than you’d find at a Harvester.
I wished my meal down with a very tasty “ginger zinger” juice – a combination of carrot, apple and ginger. And it certainly better have tasted excellent for the price of £3.45 for a small 250ml bottle. Other drinks contain the likes of raw cacao, cashew nuts and beetroot.
Superfoods may not be an alien concept but it needs to come drastically to life if its arrival on Park Street is to be celebrated.
Superfoods, 37 Park Street, Bristol, BS1 5NH