Oasis Juice Bar

Oasis is in an unfortunate position on Albany Road, a few strides from sandwich shops extraordinaire La Mina and Magic Wrap. It’s not that Oasis does anything particularly badly — the wraps will fill you up, the juice is zingy enough. But the competition means that if anybody tells you this is the best sandwich joint in Roath, they probably don’t live in the area (or are an Oasis employee on a covert marketing mission). The glossy frontage, rather too indistinguishable from the tanning salon next door, isn’t exactly a presentational plus either.

I grabbed a juice from this Juice & Sandwich Bar this week, and it was very delicious — this is definitely one of the healthier places to get a drink or some lunch in this area (along with Magic Wrap, just up the road), and on a sunny day they offer the most refreshing drinks on offer along Albany Road.
You can’t mis sthe place thanks to its bright orange, green and white sign — sandwiched in between far less eye-​catching shops on either side.
They have a good range of different juice recipes and combinations, although they don’t seem to offer so many of the ‘health-​boosting’ shots that you find in more serious juice bars. They also sell paninis, baguettes, wraps and sandwiches with a fair choice of fillings, as well as hot drinks such as tea and coffee.

I’m not sure why, but the standard of juice bars in this area is nowhere near as good as it could be, but I guess without adequate competition there’s room for complacency… Oasis Juice And Sandwich Bar is the best of a poor bunch, offering a reasonable selection of juices that are made with decent enough fruit. Personally I would like to see a broader selection of juices that truly focussed on the health benefits as well as the taste, but perhaps there’s not enough call for this in Roath, so their hands may be tied.
I often call in at juice bars elsewhere to get a wheatgrass shot or a revitalising vitamin hit with the added extra antioxidant components of acai or spirulena etc… and this is the direction that I’d like to see Oasis Juice And Sandwich Bar go in. They’ve got a solid enough foundation, I think they just need to build on it. Again, in my personal opinion there is sufficient call for it, especially of they market it correctly.
I used to work at an office that was a two minute walk from an excellent juice bar, and I used to visit it three times a week, spending on average ten pounds a pop. For this I would get the most expensive healthful juice, a wrap and a latte… perfect! I offset the damage I was doing with the coffee by investing in the juice! Oasis Juice And Sandwich Bar offer panini’s, wraps, baguettes etc, as well as tea and coffee. They really possess in a similar set-​up, and so there’s definitely scope for achieving the same ends… and without expending too much effort or suffering too much additional expense…

This place also sells things like sandwiches and wraps along with their juices but it is in the juices that they really excel. To be honest, if they fully focused their energies onto the juices, I think they could come up with something even better, and I could have given them 5 stars! As it is, sometimes the food and drink can lack a little something; it’s hard to put my finger in what but I think it might just be a lack of care, and a failure to get the precisely perfect recipes down to a tee. The juices, though, like I said, are delicious. On a sunny day it is lovely to go and pick one up, and then wander up to Roath park for a little stroll around, feeling happy, healthy and at peace with the world.