My friend and I walked over to Emerald City Smoothie in Downtown Bellevue after doing barre class…read morenearby. This was my first time at Emerald City Smoothie in ten years and my first time at the Downtown Bellevue location.
The interior is fairly small with only a few tables to sit/stand at and so it's mostly a takeout place rather than a place to meet with friends.
Emerald City Smoothie has a wide menu and categorize their menu into five categories based on health goals: "Boost My Immune System", "Help Me Lose Weight", "Go Green", "Bulk Me Up" and "Nourish My Body". They also have a menu just for "Boosters" which cost extra and include everything from antioxidants to bees pollen to creatine and fat burner. Lastly, they have a Secret Menu which includes Banana Creme Pie, Matcha Green Tea, Maui Paradise, Mountain Berry Blast, Orange Creamsicle, Piña Colada, and Peanut Butter Cup. I'm pretty sure their secret menu is just drinks that don't fit into the other categories (or ran out of room for), because they had these same drinks on their menu ten years ago.
I ordered the MATCHA GREEN TEA (16-oz) off the secret menu. This smoothie has soy milk, matcha, non-fat milk, and whey. For $7.44 (including tax), this was pretty pricey for a "healthified" matcha Frappucinno. They obviously don't use high quality matcha as the matcha color was on the yellow side and the taste was quite diluted and bland. It mostly just tasted like sugary blended milk with little to no matcha flavor; I was honestly disappointed, but drank it anyway.
My friend got her favorite NUTTY BANANA (sub vegan protein) which has banana, peanut butter, protein, and nonfat milk, which is probably what I should've gotten instead. She also ordered a PB&J and MANGO MANIA for her family members which are also supposed to be decent. Lesson learned, stick with the fruit smoothies.
Service was good- the baristas are friendly and efficient and we got our drinks within 10 minutes after ordering.
Overall: 2/5 for drinks, 4/5 for service, 3/5 for atmosphere