It's the Yogurt Craze of 2008!
I first noticed it when Golden Spoon replaced Ben & Jerry's in Hillcrest.
Abe and I thought "frozen yogurt...yum...that sounds good..." We stopped by a couple months ago on a week night for a quick treat. To our surprise, the quick treat was going to be a lot more complicated.
First, there was the battle for the parking spot. Parking is limited and people are irate. They want their yogurt damn it! Horns honking, spot stealing and everything! We parked safely and made our way to the entrance. "Whoa!" I said "Look at the line." It was out the door. 12 deep at least. We waited, no problem.
Once I could read the menu I was baffled. Golden Spoon has many options, about 15 flavors and endless mix-ins. Abe warned me not to get up there and start asking for samples, as the line behind us continued to grow. But I couldn't resist I tasted a few (cake batter, root beer) and ended up with peanut butter yogurt with reeses pieces. So yummy!
On a different trip to Golden Spoon (they actually have gold spoons...nice touch) as we were standing in the line that goes out the door, we noticed a lonely little yogurt shop right across the street. Yog-Art.
Poor Yog-Art. They have to stare at the uber successful Golden Spoon all day! I decided next time, we would give the little guy a shot.
And we did.
And Yog-Art was GOOD too!
And they didn't have a line out the door, but they were busy.
I tried the Taro with mango. D-Lish.
(That's not me in the picture, I found it on google, like all the other pictures on this post)
The Hard Rock Hotel opened in downtown earlier this year. And since then they had a Pinkberry Coming Soon sign. Pinkberry might just be the leader of the Yogurt Craze of 2008.
We had heard of it. We were curious. We knew it was in cool places like LA and New York. We tried it a few weeks ago....and have been back several times.
After a late dinner at La Puerta, we walked over. It was about 11pm, on a Wednesday night, and guess what? There was a line out the door! Seriously. Mostly due to the Padres game that had just ended, but still...seriously.
Oddly enough, Patrick and Sara, who were visiting from Austin, were there. Lucky us, they were at the front of the line and they ordered for us. I tried original with mango, Abe had original with oreos. I was surprised that the original tastes a lot like regular vanilla yogurt. Abe didn't like it with oreos but since then he has ordered it with fruit and he likes it much better.
My favorite Pinkberry treat is original with fruity pebbles and mango. YUM!
*Raddest thing about Pinkberry, they are open til 3am on Friday and Saturday*
And then, last night, we tried the Pinkberry copy cat, Red Mango.
I don't know how a company can get away with completely copying the business plan of another company. Isn't it illegal? Pink Berry/Red Mango. The menu is 99% identical. Crazy.
But...Red Mango was good. The original was sweeter and the green tea tasted less chemically than Pinkberry.
I have to confess something...
We have been on a minor yogurt binge. Can you tell?
But really...what's up with the Yogurt Craze of 2008? Have you been enjoying as much frozen yogurt as we have?
UPDATE: We found another one, Apple Green in La Jolla. Since the trend seems to be to pick a name with a color and a fruit, I would name my yogurt shop "Orange Orange," representing both my favorite fruit and one of my favorite colors. :D
2 comments:
Red Mango is all the rage in Korea...maybe you should come do some yogurt critics here. I'll show you around. You can be my Anthony Bourdain.
i believe red mango was founded before pink berry though..but in korea. Pink berry just opened sooner in the states than red mango...both are good though~
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