Hula Juice Bar

This review appears in the The List's Eating & Drinking Guide 2008 – in the shops now or buy online.

Visiting Hula is like finding that place 'somewhere over the rainbow'. A wild spectrum of fresh fruits and jungles of organic wheatgrass promising invigoration, detoxification and stimulation are liquified into fabulous smoothies by co-founders Susan and Ben. Inspired by the juice drinking culture in Dublin, they've created some truly inspiring juice bars. The Tollcross branch is geared to takeaway, with the full range of juices plus a 'grab-a-bag' deal that will net you coffee or tea plus a cake for £1.90, or a wrap, snack and OJ for £4. Across town, large windows and funkily painted walls make the West Bow Hula café a light and lively pit-stop for a late breakfast of booster juice with honey and cinnamon porridge, or muesli, fruit and yoghurt with berry coulis. For lunch, spicy chickpea and spinach soup, oak-smoked salmon and guacamole wraps or pesto chicken bagels make it hard to leave room for the glorious home-made hot chocolate fudge cake with frozen yoghurt. Monthly art shows and Sunday afternoon music sessions are lively, as are the exotic shoes and jewellery on sale, which you can try on for looks while the kids draw at the wooden tables. So get down there, don the hand-made ruby red shoes, click your heels together three times, and say: 'There's no place like Hula! There's no place like Hula!'

• High point: Zesty and funky, a pot of gold!
• Low point: No Munchkins doing the hula