The latest genius of a project from the folks behind the Guelaguetza restaurants in Koreatown (that’s the Lopez family) is a Oaxacan organic juice bar right next to their 8th Street location.
Mandatory disclosure: I was there to discuss Natura Bar‘s sponsorship of the @Koreatown account on Twitter (an announcement that deserves a separate post), and in the photo you can see the head of Bricia, who was letting me in to take a look. I snapped the pic with my iPhone because I thought it was cute that the address was 3335 and one-fourth.
Bricia is the vivacious Lopez daughter who along with her brother Fernando developed the concept for the organic juice bar. He is currently the manager of the 8th Street location of Guelaguetza and will also be overseeing Natura.
What has everyone on Twitter and food blogs excited is that this juice bar located in the heart of Spanish-speaking Koreatown will be offering Oaxacan jugos and licuados that are all organic and natural. And of course the team behind it has a successful track record of pleasing both foodies and everyday diners, so no one is expecting to be disappointed.
To drive the point across as soon as we entered, Bricia quickly handed me a serving of jicama juice that was all natural with absolutely nothing added to it — no sugar! They call it Purifica Juice and what’s great about it is that it has virtually no calories or fat, but has all the nutritional goodness of the fruit such as anti-oxidants, fiber, vitamin C, potassium… I grew up munching on raw jicama (you know, the Mexican turnip), but never did it occur to me to make juice from it. Great idea!
The board above lists one of the cornerstones of Natura Bar‘s menu — the homemade Nieves Oaxaqueñas, aka Oaxacan ice cream. Among the flavors are mamey sapote, limon (key lime), leche quemada (burnt milk), nuez (walnut), coco (coconut), vainilla (vanilla), and flor de piña (pineapple blossom). The prices currently written are $1.50 for a scoop, $2.75 for two scoops, and $4 for three.
That’s Bricia herself scooping out some leche quemada ice cream for me to try. Her mom’s recipe really does capture that classic Mexican flavor of burnt milk. Healthy cold treat to enjoy during the 4th of July weekend ~
Another stalwart item on the Natura menu is the LICUADOS, the fruit shakes!
Mango, Fresa (strawberry), Platano (banana), Mamey
$4.25 for the smallest size, $5.75 for the largest
Licuado de Fresa made from organic strawberries ~
The staff had all the different flavors of shakes lined up for taste-testing, but all those liquids would have overwhelmed my lower torso. I was game to try a slightly solid goodie in the form of Mexican jello.
I was in such a hurry to wolf it down all I could remember is that the lower layer is milk-based and it really tasted natural and evoked no childhood memories of the keenly artificial flavor of American Jell-O.
Natura Bar is also proud to be serving a Fruit Cocktail composed of watermelon, pineapple, papaya, cantaloupe and apples. It’s topped with strawberries and jicama shavings, as well as a homemade organic guava yogurt that’s fat free! The sweetener is organic honey that the Lopez family brought in directly from Mexico. Yup, honey from bees in Jalisco!
Dulkaab: La dulzura mas pura
100% miel de abeja de Jalisco
You can find Natura Bar on Facebook and the juice bar’s updates on Twitter.
Soft-opening this weekend — Saturday July 3rd at 10am
Normal hours of operation will be 7am-8pm, Monday -Sunday.
Address: 3335 W. 8th Street, Los Angeles CA 90005
Cross street is Irolo. The restaurant is located on the northwest.
Guelaguetza’s phone number: 213-427-0601
Hope I can find time to show up on Saturday with my Flip camcorder. The eating and drinking luminaries of Los Angeles are going to be there for sure!
