Blend Greenness is the tiny new Miami cafe that’s big on stacked sandos and specialty sips
There’s a tiny new pocket of green tucked alongside the Gold Coast Highway in Miami, and if you’re partial to an extremely stacked sandwich and a specialty sip, you’ll want to know about it. Blend Greenness has opened in the former Miami Hot Bread space, bringing Asian-inspired sandwiches, colourful rice bowls, fresh juices, smoothies, matcha and cold brew to this busy little stretch of the highway.
Blend Greenness is a new daytime eatery from Parada ‘Mint’ Leelaworaphong and Porramate ‘Toto’ Kidsoda, the owners of neighbouring Tide Bar and Kitchen. While Tide takes care of dinner, Blend Greenness gives the pair a chance to do something completely different during the day. The idea initially leaned firmly towards healthy fare, until Toto started campaigning for stacked sandwiches. A little compromise later, the two concepts came together.
The sandwiches have quickly emerged as a specialty, taking familiar cafe territory and giving it a distinctly Asian lean. The chicken katsu and barbecue beef are two to try, the latter slathered with Korean barbecue sauce. There’s also panko prawn with Thousand Island dressing, crab meat and tobiko, roasted pork with hoisin, smoked salmon, buffalo chicken and a gloriously hefty kransky-and-cheese number. Most come packed with a fried egg, green oak, carrot and red cabbage, resulting in the kind of cross-sections that practically demand to be photographed before you take a bite.
If the name didn’t give it away, there’s plenty of green stuff too. Build-your-own rice bowls start with riceberry rice (wholegrain Thai rice), edamame, cucumber, avocado, boiled egg and salad, before you choose a protein, sauce and dressing. Chicken, beef, tofu, fried chicken, panko prawn and roasted pork are all in the mix, alongside Korean barbecue, tonkatsu, teriyaki and hoisin sauces and dressings such as roasted sesame, miso and sesame, and wasabi yuzu. There are also wonton and noodle soups, yoghurt bowls, acai bowls, fresh juices and smoothies. Mint says freshness was an important part of the concept, with food prepared fresh each day.
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Then there are the drinks, which might just warrant a visit of their own. Matcha gets the full treatment with salted caramel, strawberry and pistachio iterations, alongside an orange-vanilla-foam matcha latte and Coconut Matcha Cloud, which pairs coconut water with a pillowy layer of matcha cold foam. Coffee drinkers aren’t left with the standard latte-or-long-black decision either. The Mont Blanc combines cold brew with orange juice, orange-vanilla cold foam and nutmeg, while the Pistachio Cold Brew is finished with pistachio cold foam. Fresh juices and smoothies round things out for anyone committed to the original healthy brief.
The space itself is small but hard to miss. Deep forest green covers almost every surface, from the tiled counter to the menu boards. A handful of tables hug the pathway overlooking the highway, making it an easy place to pull up with a coffee, while the new Christine Avenue tram stop is just a short walk away. The owners say the arrival of the tram was part of the appeal of opening a daytime venue here, seeing the location as a natural fit for breakfast, lunch and coffee.
Blend Greenness is now open. Head to The Directory for opening times.
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