The Afternoon at Sweetgreen

Have you ever heard of sweetgreen?
I’ve had a big vegetarian crush on this store ever since I read about it on this blog. It’s an amazing store that mainly serves delicious and healthy salads, pressed juice, and frozen yogurt. The organic produce are from local farmers, which I think is a great concept. Naturally I looked up where their stores were but found they were mostly located in the DC metro area.
So imagine how excited I was to hear that my friend E started working for them! Woohoo!
During my stay in DC, I begged E to take me to her store and I got to try their seasonal October Salad! It was a bowl full of organic mesclun & shredded kale with local apples, pears, organic basil, organic white cheddar and candied pecans, and topped off with balsamic vinaigrette. Doesn’t that sound fabulous? Oh, and I got roasted tofu, too. It was so so good and surprisingly very fulfilling! 
I feel like we need more places to eat like this in Tokyo. I’m am now hooked on their salads and I’m crossing my fingers that this store makes it’s way to this side of the world sometime soon. *hint hint*
Here are some pictures:
Checking out the store with this sweet girl.

Did I mention the bread? It was also amazing…yum yum!
You can get one of the salads on their menu, or you can make your own salad, too!

K and I shared a cup of frozen yogurt 😀
Doesn’t the salad look delicious? I could eat it every day. x

I loved their shelf full of salad greens.
This is actually a different sweetgreen and not my friend’s store…but you get the idea! 😀

11 thoughts on “The Afternoon at Sweetgreen”

  1. I read that post on LoveTaza too! So when I saw the title of your post, I was like, もしかして？ haha. Looks yummy! I actually used to hate veggies and salad–basically anything that's good for you. I was all cheeseburgers, donuts and peppermint patties. But my taste has changed ever since I had E. That salad looks delicious! Definitely would be great to have something like this in Japan.

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  3. I have gone green myself so this place looks ideal! Your choice looks like a Waldorf salad from heaven.

    I found this site just now and noticed a macrobiotic place on the 7th Floor of Isetan (a little expensive perhaps). That and other Shinjuku places here.

    I used to get the most intense cravings for falafel that I could satisfy at Pita the Great.

    But, do you know my big thing recently? Making my own natto. It is really quite simple and you don’t need any special culture or anything. You can use a few beans from any pack of commercial natto mixed with a little water as the starter culture. You can use any kind of beans like garbanzo, or black-eyed peas, and so forth. There are some YouTube videos and web sites that show how. I don’t have a pressure cooker so I steam the beans for 1 to 6 hours until soft. Then the key is to keep the temperature when fermenting between 37º and 45º (99ºF – 110ºF) for 24 hours. Voila.

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  4. I'm very much a junk food eater! But I like veggies, too. Good thing because it evens out my diet to so-so. 😀

    The salad was amazing! Do you have a place in Nagoya that is like this store? I can't really think of any here in Tokyo except for maybe the salad bar at Sizzlers?

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  6. Oh I love falafels, too! There's a really great Israeli restaurant in Ekoda that I like to go to that serves falafels. So good.

    I think it's so amazing that you make your own natto. And it's kind of crazy that you can use any type of beans, I had no idea! I myself don't eat natto, which is very un-Japanese of me. But in my defense, people in Okinawa originally didn't eat natto as part of their diet because of the very hot climate and food like natto would go bad much faster than main land Japan ;D

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  7. The first time I tried natto (from local U.S. supermarket, Japanese food section in refrigerator near tofu) I couldn’t believe any one could consider it to be food for humans. Then, later, when I was a starving exchange student in Japan, someone said natto was healthy. “Hmm. On rice and mixed with mustard I can almost eat this without holding my nose and spitting it out 頑張れ！” I thought. But soon I actually came to like it. Still do. I found that even non-Japanese friends took to natto quite well if it was cooked, like in natto omelets or baked in a crust (焼き納豆）。Cooking brings out a nutty flavor.

    I just read this at Wiki: “Nattō may be an acquired taste because of its powerful smell, strong flavor, and slimy texture. In Japan nattō is most popular in the eastern regions, including Kantō, Tōhoku, and Hokkaido.” Okinawa is just about as far away from eastern Japan as anyplace that is considered to be in Japan (by some) can be. Not eating natto sure doesn’t make you less Japanese. Just, maybe, western Japanesish.

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  8. My whole family eats Natto except for me. When I started living on my own, my number one rule was “No natto in my fridge!” I tried it once in curry, which my friend said would lessen the distinct taste/smell of natto…but it all ended up in the dumpster after a spoon full. Eck!

    Just so you know, I hold no prejudice against anyone who eats natto (it's known to boost your IQ)…but it's still not allowed inside my apartment 😀

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  9. Another exchange student at that time said that the, um, “lovely fragrance,” ahem, of natto reminded her, retchingly, of her family farm when uneaten cow feed (soy beans) left in feed troughs got wet from rain (or cow saliva?) and would then become rotten. To her natto was indistinguishable from rotten cow feed.

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  10. I knew about Shamaim in Ekoda, but I somehow never managed a trip to that restaurant. I did go to something like a sister shop they had for a while somewhere around Moto Azabu 15 years ago. They had that same all-you-can-eat-for-¥1,200 deal for dinner. Nice!

    Whenever I went to Ekoda I found that the recorded train announcements were too much for me because of all the way-too-excessive reverb. But none of the Japanese people seemed to hear it. Only English speakers. I went to the stationmaster’s office and asked them about it. The reason they gave was 江古田だから英語を話せる人の聞く事のは Echo だ。

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