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.

N’Ice Cream Nielsen’s Homemade Gelato & Sorbet

N’Ice Cream officially opened up this weekend on Abbot Kinney. Immediately next door to a Pinkberry, a renovated garage has now become a cute little gelato shop. This place stands out to me because not only are their limited ice cream / gelato places (that aren’t corporate) in the area, but the owner I met was friendly and talkative (not too talkative though, just right talkative). I love when proprietors are social, it makes the experience more enjoyable; it’s good to know that someone cares about their product and their customers. Apparently, the owners are from Denmark (cool!) and are keeping N’Ice Cream a mom&pop place (not selling their souls franchising).

They make their gelato/sorbet fresh everyday (you can even watch them as they make it through a window). The day we went had about 10 standard gelato flavors, which is good for people like my boyfriend, but I love crazy ridiculous flavors. This is not to say I did not enjoy what I ordered. I am sure they will expand on that in the future. I chose a combination of Coffee, Chocolate Hazelnut, and Vanilla. Each one was wonderful in their own way. The chocolate hazelnut had pieces of hazelnut in it, making it my favorite of the cup. The vanilla had little black vanilla bean dots making it the most aesthetically pleasing. I regretfully did not get the white chocolate, but I heard people talk about how amazing it was. This place is great. In the heat, it will become quite popular especially since it is so close to the beach. They also do To Go packs. And they take credit cards. Go check it out.

N’Ice Cream
1410 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291

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

Frogo Before I Go

My roommate and I stopped at Frogo for a little treat today. Since it was in the afternoon and I am going to be on a red eye flight tonight, I was unable to try the coffee even though I heard it is good. I promise someday soon I will!

The flavors for the day were: Death By Chocolate, White Chocolate Mousse, Green Tea Froyo, and a Froyo (FrogoTart). I sampled both the White Chocolate Mousse and the Green Tea. I saw that they offered mochi (Japanese rice cake) as a topping, so I ordered a small Green Tea with mochi. My roommate ordered the White Chocolate Mousse with chocolate chips. The service was great, but that just might be because they recognized me from last time. Either way, the two people behind the register have always been pleasant and friendly. Both yogurt flavors were quite tasty. I still stand by my earlier review of the green tea; that it is smoother and sweeter than Pinkberry. I would like to add that the mochi was nice and soft, not too chewy. The White Chocolate Mousse is also soft and sweet, but with a more traditional yogurt taste than the tart Green Tea. I hope they rotate more flavors in soon, because it is always fun to sample new flavors.

Note: I interrupted my San Diego reviews with this Frogo review because a lot of people seemed interested in my first trip there (so I went back today to try more). Yum! Tomorrow I will resume with reviews of my San Diego trip!

Frogo

1300 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Get Directions(310) 395-6794

Frogo Yogurt

If you don’t live in Los Angeles then you might not know, but frozen yogurt has become like the new Starbucks or the new cupcake. Ever since Pinkberry opened, frozen yogurt places are popping up all over the place. A lot of Pinkberry copycats have appeared throughout the city such as Red Mango, Kiwiberry, and Berri Good! All of which I have never been to before because I live within half a mile of 2 different Pinkberry locations (seriously, one to the north and one to the south). However, I am not as in love with Pinkberry or tart yogurt anymore. I find myself enjoying the more traditional style of frozen yogurt. My two favorite places to go are Bigg Chill and 21 Choices. Since 21 Choices is so far away, I go to Bigg Chill more often. However, it can be a pretty stressful experience at Bigg Chill because it is always packed with people.

As if the Jenny Craig location on Wilshire did not have it hard being next door to a Pizzeria and across the street from a Krispy Kreme. Now they are faced with more temptation, although a little healthier, by Frogo Yogurt on the corner of Wilshire and Euclid in Santa Monica. The yogurt shop is different than most yogurt places around because they also offer organic coffee drinks. The layout of the store is nice and simple. The modern orange chairs you see in the picture can be found throughout the whole establishment. Their menu is on TV screens behind glass on the walls, which made it a little inconvenient for me to read because the sun was causing a glare. They have about four flavors which rotate, but I do not know how regularly or consistently. The flavors they offered on my visit were: chocolate, white chocolate mousse, mango, and tart. I sampled the chocolate and tart. Frogo’s Tart is a sweeter and softer (as in probably melts faster) yogurt in comparison to Pinkberry’s distinctly tart taste and firmer consistency of yogurt. If I were in the mood for tart yogurt, I would probably choose Pinkberry over Frogo. I ordered a small chocolate with Reese’s Pieces. The chocolate tasted like traditional chocolate yogurt, but kind of got boring after a few bites. In the end, it was good, much better than the TCBY in the area, but not as tasty as Bigg Chill. It is definitely a more relaxed and refined place to go to if you’re on that side of town and want to eat traditional yogurt.

I thought about tasting the coffee, but I was hesitant. The coffee was staying warm in a pump pot, which in my mind means the coffee is most likely not at it’s freshest (unless of course the coffee is so popular that they are constantly making some, but this was not the case). It was also pretty late in the afternoon, so caffeine was the last stimulant my body needed. Maybe some other time.

Frogo Yogurt

1300 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Get Directions(310) 395-6794

Bigg Chill

10850 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90064

Get Directions(310) 475-107

Late start.

Nothing is worse than sleeping in, but still waking up tired. I’ve recently, as of a day ago, started writing a To Do list on my wipey board (not a technical term). It definitely helped for the first day. But, day 2 doesn’t seem so exciting to barrel through. Maybe I am making the list too hard and not as rewarding or fun. Maybe I should just put easy things on it like:

1. Drink coffee
2. Get massage
3. Write birthday wish list
4. Take a stroll
5. Go to Pinkberry Bigg Chill
6. Sit and ponder
7. Have a glass of wine
8. Nap