Pinkberry Friday (It’s Free!)

Pinkberry is releasing their new flavors today: Coconut and Passion Fruit

To celebrate the new flavors, Pinkberry is giving out free yogurt from 5-9pm. My co-worker and I went at 4:50 and waited about 10 minutes in line. The sample is a size small with 2 toppings.

I chose Coconut with mochi (Japanese rice cake that has gummi like texture) and shredded coconut. Definitely my new favorite flavor. Hope you get your free sample at your local Pinkberry!

Edit: Sad news everyone, but these new flavors have replaced the Green Tea flavor. Pinkberry only serves: Regular (tart), Pomegranate, Coconut, and Passion Fruit. It’s an unjust world.

Trader Joe’s Plain Nonfat Frozen Yogurt

Pleasantly Tart with active cultures

It is my latest find at Trader Joe’s. Well, it’s not really my latest find. I’ve been eating this for a few weeks now, but have been unable to post about it because I am so overcome with excitement and happiness about it that I forget to take a picture. Finally, after finishing my nightly bowl I remembered to take a picture of the aesthetically pleasing container. It’s tart. More tart than Pinkberry. It also has active cultures too (something Pinkberry doesn’t have). You can tell this when you bite into it because it tastes so similar to yogurt. However, it is almost custard like in texture. Not what I initially expected, but delicious. It’s this cat’s meow.

Homemade Pizza / Recessionizza

I’ve waited days for my cold/bronchitis to go away so I could use the ingredients I bought last week to make pizza. It is now day eight and I’m still coughing, congested, and frustrated. This evening, I decided I did not want to wait any longer.

Even though I love pizza, I do not eat it too often because of health and economic reasons. I usually buy Amy’s frozen pizza to mitigate the health concerns, but afterwards I feel guilty for spending six dollars on such a small frozen serving. Having just opened a Mint account to budget myself, I have become ultra aware of my spending and decided it was time to start making my own pizza. For my first attempt, I kept it easy and used whole wheat pita, low-fat mozzarella cheese, Muir Glen pizza sauce, garlic, fresh farmer’s market asparagus, onion, and kalamata olives (thanks roomie!). Delicious. In the future, I plan to make the dough and sauce myself and also get more creative with the toppings.

Yoku Yoku

Pumpkin Pie and Peanut Butter: Happiness in a Cup

Yoku Yoku
11146 Palms Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-0571

Yoku Yoku

I went here for the first time about two weeks ago. I have fallen in love. It has become my new favorite frozen yogurt place. As you can see below, the pros outweigh the cons which makes this place rank very high. I was tempted not to write about it because I wanted to keep it my little secret, but then I decided I wanted to share it with the world ten people.

The cons
-Kinda far from where I live; farther than Bigg Chill (it’s practically in Culver City)
-Completely furnished with the predictable “Ikea” style

The pros
-Close to a Trader Joe’s (2 birds, 1 stone)
-Not as busy as Bigg Chill
-Takes credit cards ($5 minimum, so you HAVE to get a large with toppings)
-Parking lot is not too crowded or overwhelming (like Bigg Chill)
-You’re practically in Culver City so you might as well go get a glass of wine at Bottle Rock
-Pretty wide selection of flavors (tart, chocolate, vanilla, cookies and cream, peanut butter, specials for the week)
-Menu offers nutritional information (allowing me to know that I am eating way too much)

I am a simple girl and ordered Peanut Butter and Chocolate. No toppings necessary, even though they had mochi. Peanut butter is my favorite flavor ever and Yoku Yoku’s seems to have the best recipe for it. So if you too enjoy Peanut Butter frozen yogurt, you should go try it. Or if you just like frozen yogurt, check it out.

Yoku Yoku
11146 Palms Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-0571

Red Mango

Stopped by Red Mango last week to see if it was in anyway like Blue Mango. Turns out the answer is No, it’s not like Blue Mango at all. Instead, it is exactly like Pinkberry. Red Mango has two flavors: Plain Tart and Green Tea. They have the standard toppings of fruits and cereals. I chose the Twist of Tart and Green Tea with mochi. It tasted so similar to Pinkberry that I would probably have to try them side by side to distinguish the real differences. I think that Red Mango might be less tart as Pinkberry, though. Red Mango claims that their yogurt is fat-free, gluten-free, and certified Kosher. If there were one closer to me (there are only 10 total located in Southern California), I would place it in the yogurt rotation more often to add “variety.” If you need your yogurt fix and enjoy the taste of Pinkberry, then there is a high chance that you will also like Red Mango.

Red Mango
3101 Main St.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
Phone: 310 664 9600
Hours: noon-11pm
Other Locations

Yogen Früz

A new frozen yogurt chain (from Canada) has entered Los Angeles! Unfortunately, it is located in Beverly Hills. It is for this reason that I waited until Sunday evening to go check it out. The company has been around since 1986 and plans to open 1,000 more stores across the nation over the next decade.The place is small with very limited seating. Their big “thing” is blending the yogurt and the fruit via machine, which isn’t anything new (Humphrey Yogart has the same type of machine for their mixing). But, the majority of their yogurt is prepackaged and individually wrapped like popsicles. At this point in time they have one soft serve flavor and that is called Probiotic Soft Serve on their website, which means that it is the same as Original/Plain/Tart.

I was very interested in the packaged yogurt. The have a variety of package flavors: lowfat vanilla, lowfat chocolate, nonfat vanilla, and nonfat no sugar vanilla (the green packages in the picture). On the wall they have a picture of the Matcha Green Tea Blend. I chose that in Lowfat Vanilla flavor with some mochi topping. They use actual matcha green tea powder and blend it with the yogurt. The yogurt was not as sweet as I am used to, but it certainly was creamy. I am unsure how I feel about the matcha green tea powder because it made the not-sweet yogurt taste even less sweet by adding a bitter component. I am guessing that the workers there have not learned to master the yogurt blending yet and this is why the taste isn’t perfect nor is the cup aesthetically pleasing. The mochi pieces were also not very sweet and less gummy than most other yogurt places; completely different in taste and texture than any other yogurt store’s.

In the end, it was new and interesting. I am sure people will enjoy it and it will become popular especially as an alternative to other yogurts. But personally, I will give it time to work out it’s kinks before I go back.

Yogen Früz
9401 Brighton Way
Beverly Hills, CA 90210