Where I work, in Ballsbridge, there is a serious lack of good places to get healthy food. There is an abundance of 'soup and a sambo' joints (eugh) where white roll after white roll is churned out with chicken tikka and extra mayonnaise. But if you are trying to watch what you eat, or just eat healthily, there's hardly anywhere. I mostly bring in my own lunch, but when I forget, I normally have to cycle to Camden St to go to Listons to get anything remotely salad-like.
This was why I was over the moon to discover The Punnet had opened literally a stones throw away. Calling itself the home of healthy living, and a 'health and beauty store', I was delighted to see they were serving shots of wheatgrass, fresh juices, smoothies, salads, herbal teas and GIANT TUBS OF ALMOND BUTTER OMG. They seem to have positioned themselves as a super healthy store for gym bunnies, with paleo boxes and protein bars galore.
Yesterday I popped in to have a look and was impressed by some aspects of the store, and was a little disappointed with other aspects. The store was bright and clean, but the selection of products wasnt amazing. They had walls of tea, and shelves of almond butter (I'm not complaining) but it seemed like they might have been filling space with a lot of the same product. It was also more expensive than Nourish and other health food shops for coconut water, tofu, and almond butter (my quest to find the cheapest almond butter in town has led me to Donnybrook fair so far, the quest continues). They have another store in Glasthule which seems to boast way more stock and looks really fantastic, so I'm looking forward to them branching out and stocking more of what they stock there.
I opted to have a salad box where you choose a leaf, 4 veg and meat/smoked tofu for €6.95. I didn't think the tofu would be worth an extra €2 so just opted for the €4.95 salad box with no meat. After I had selected my veg, I was expecting some dressing options - but this was the biggest disappointment, there were none! They did however supply a gorgeous spicy hummus, but in a tiny tub and it was too thick to coat the oodles of salad leaves they give. I would have loved to have seen a healthy option for dressing, even a lemon, apple cider vinegar, avocado or mustard-y dressing with extra virgin olive oil. If you were a meat eater it might have been better as you would have had more flavour with the chicken or ham.
I got an apple, pineapple, spirulina, celery, cucumber and avocado juice too, which was gorgeous, and well worth the €5 as it wasn't watery or full of crap, sugar etc. It could have been a little less sweet though.
Overall, the juice was really nice, and filling. Which was good, because my salad was just a bunch of undressed veg which was pretty disappointing for €5. I think if these guys started to look into creating their own salads, like Listons (with grains like quinoa, buckwheat, some cheeses, gluten free wraps, etc) they could have a really loyal following.
I decided to go back today to give them a second chance today. I got a wheatgrass shot with apple and cucumber which was gorgeous and I could drink one every day, and a tuna, quinoa, avocado and tomato wrap which was OK, but again a little mealy and would have hugely benefited from some dressing or flavour of some kind. The tiny hummus smear on the inside of the wrap really didnt add to the flavour. I'm all for clean eating but you should SO have the option to add a clean, healthy dressing or flavour to your fillings. The large chunk of quinoa in my wrap tasted like nothing at all, which was disappointing, when it could easily have been spiked with lime juice, chilli and pepper and still kept incredibly clean and healthy.
So far, I'm only convinced that its got merit as a juice bar... but I'll be keeping a close eye on it to see if anything changes, especially in terms of their ingredients. I'm delighted to have a shop that stocks juice and health food shop ingredients, and I bought a tub of their clean version of nutella which I'm dying to try. But I wont be back for lunch anytime soon...
http://thepunnethealthstore.com/
This was why I was over the moon to discover The Punnet had opened literally a stones throw away. Calling itself the home of healthy living, and a 'health and beauty store', I was delighted to see they were serving shots of wheatgrass, fresh juices, smoothies, salads, herbal teas and GIANT TUBS OF ALMOND BUTTER OMG. They seem to have positioned themselves as a super healthy store for gym bunnies, with paleo boxes and protein bars galore.
Yesterday I popped in to have a look and was impressed by some aspects of the store, and was a little disappointed with other aspects. The store was bright and clean, but the selection of products wasnt amazing. They had walls of tea, and shelves of almond butter (I'm not complaining) but it seemed like they might have been filling space with a lot of the same product. It was also more expensive than Nourish and other health food shops for coconut water, tofu, and almond butter (my quest to find the cheapest almond butter in town has led me to Donnybrook fair so far, the quest continues). They have another store in Glasthule which seems to boast way more stock and looks really fantastic, so I'm looking forward to them branching out and stocking more of what they stock there.
I opted to have a salad box where you choose a leaf, 4 veg and meat/smoked tofu for €6.95. I didn't think the tofu would be worth an extra €2 so just opted for the €4.95 salad box with no meat. After I had selected my veg, I was expecting some dressing options - but this was the biggest disappointment, there were none! They did however supply a gorgeous spicy hummus, but in a tiny tub and it was too thick to coat the oodles of salad leaves they give. I would have loved to have seen a healthy option for dressing, even a lemon, apple cider vinegar, avocado or mustard-y dressing with extra virgin olive oil. If you were a meat eater it might have been better as you would have had more flavour with the chicken or ham.
I got an apple, pineapple, spirulina, celery, cucumber and avocado juice too, which was gorgeous, and well worth the €5 as it wasn't watery or full of crap, sugar etc. It could have been a little less sweet though.
Overall, the juice was really nice, and filling. Which was good, because my salad was just a bunch of undressed veg which was pretty disappointing for €5. I think if these guys started to look into creating their own salads, like Listons (with grains like quinoa, buckwheat, some cheeses, gluten free wraps, etc) they could have a really loyal following.
I decided to go back today to give them a second chance today. I got a wheatgrass shot with apple and cucumber which was gorgeous and I could drink one every day, and a tuna, quinoa, avocado and tomato wrap which was OK, but again a little mealy and would have hugely benefited from some dressing or flavour of some kind. The tiny hummus smear on the inside of the wrap really didnt add to the flavour. I'm all for clean eating but you should SO have the option to add a clean, healthy dressing or flavour to your fillings. The large chunk of quinoa in my wrap tasted like nothing at all, which was disappointing, when it could easily have been spiked with lime juice, chilli and pepper and still kept incredibly clean and healthy.
So far, I'm only convinced that its got merit as a juice bar... but I'll be keeping a close eye on it to see if anything changes, especially in terms of their ingredients. I'm delighted to have a shop that stocks juice and health food shop ingredients, and I bought a tub of their clean version of nutella which I'm dying to try. But I wont be back for lunch anytime soon...
http://thepunnethealthstore.com/
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