Emma Jacobson of Samba Rock Acai Café on Water Street with an ace bowl. Photo by Chip Scheuer.
For such a small city, Santa Cruz has an unusually large number of options for finding a good acai bowl. Several restaurants and stores carry them here, unlike most cities, but ironically a lot of locals still don’t known what they are.
So, what exactly is an acai bowl? Most people by now are familiar with the acai berry, a small fruit found in South America that’s become something of a food trend in the U.S. over the past decade. Properly pronounced “ah-sigh-ee,” it’s been hailed as some kind of superfruit, with more antioxidants than blueberries. Health food stores and websites all over claim it has all sorts of crazy health benefits, some of which are probably true, most of which are probably extreme exaggeration.
None of that would matter if acai berries didn’t taste good. The flavor falls somewhere between a raspberry and blackberry, with a hint of dark chocolate—that is, when sweetened. On their own, acai berries are too bitter to eat.
While acai berries have been all the rage in Brazil for quite a while, acai bowls gained popularity there in the ’90s. They are like acai smoothies that are served in a bowl with different sliced fruits and granola served on top, and eaten with a spoon like yogurt. It’s simple, filling, energizing and very delicious.
Acai bowls first found their way to Santa Cruz about a decade ago via Café Brasil on Mission Street, which serves a variety of authentic Brazilian foods in a casual café setting. Back then, they even had little leaflets on the tables explaining exactly what acai berries (and bowls) were, since they were still mostly unknown in this country. Today they are one of the most popular items on the menu. Café Brasil manager Natasha Malia, herself Brazilian, told me that nearly a third of their sales come from acai bowls. The acai base at Café Brasil is almost juice-like, and is sweetened with guarana syrup and other fruit juices. It’s served with slices of strawberries, bananas and granola. They can be bought in a regular size ($6.75) and a smaller size ($4.75)
“They’re really popular. People are addicted to them. But they’re good for you too,” Malia told me.
I’m not exactly sure when things changed for acai bowls in Santa Cruz, but now they’re everywhere here. The other main spot for acai bowls is the Samba Rock Acai Café on Water Street, which opened about three years ago. It’s a full-fledged acai bar, much like a Jamba Juice, but everything has acai in it. Half of the menu is acai bowls, and the other half is acai smoothies. They also serve Yerba Matte tea, keeping things particularly Brazilian.
They offer 10 different variations on acai bowls. You can get such toppings as strawberries, mango, avocado, blueberries, pineapple and chocolate waffle rolls. I decided to try the highly recommended “Airton Senne,” which has peanut butter blended into the acai base. It’s topped with strawberries, banana slices, granola and guarana powder. The acai base has more of a thick smoothie texture than the juicy quality at Café Brasil.
They offer three sizes at Samba Rock: mini ($3.30-3.90), regular ($6.75-7.75) and large ($7.99-9.50). I had a mini, and it was plenty filling for a snack.
Acai bowls can be found at the café at UCSC, in New Leaf grocery stores and at several other restaurants. I didn’t have time to track down every acai bowl in Santa Cruz, so I tried one more place, Conscientious Creations Café on Soquel Ave.
This is a nice little café whose focus is just fresh, organic food. The acai bowl ($7) isn’t even a highlight of the menu, just one item of many found there, but they do it well nonetheless. Their acai base was smooth and more yogurt-like than the other two places. They kept it simple with just banana slices and granola. Even after eating three acai bowls, it was still good. A fine place to seek out, if this current acai craze gets a hold of you.
