How brilliant is this: First, take a healthful food that costs just pennies per serving and requires barely any effort to make. Then, sex it up with sweet toppings and extra ingredients. Finally, put it in a cute, portable container. That's hot oatmeal to go, the restaurant industry's newest answer to breakfast on the run.
Chains such as Starbucks, Au Bon Pain, Cosi, Caribou Coffee, Jamba Juice and Pret a Manger have introduced hot oatmeal with fruit and nut toppings for takeout within the past 18 months. Even fast-food giant McDonald's has been test-marketing a fruit-topped oatmeal in Baltimore and the District since late last year, although no decision has been made whether to offer it in other cities, a company spokesman says.
Locally, frozen yogurt shop Sweetgreen has been selling slow-cooked organic oatmeal mixed with quinoa from its roving yellow Sweetflow Mobile van a couple of mornings each week downtown. And Community Canteen in Reston offers thick-cut natural oatmeal from Bob's Red Mill with such toppings as goji berries and kiwi.
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