i can't believe that i was only away from the bay area for 2 months, and at least 5 new frozen yogurt shops opened within a 10-mile vicinity. there's yogurberry, red mango, froyo?, yogurtland, and tartini. possibly more. i only got to try tartini with a friend last week and we shared the lychee flavored fro-yo with blueberries, strawberries, and whole lychees. not bad. (sorry, the one pictured isn't what we had, but that's what you can expect.) most of these places have a self-serve bar and are charged by weight, so you get to decide how much you want (and can eat) at the time of purchase.this boom in fro-yo shops in the bay area is probably a result of the highly successful pinkberry, founded in los angeles by two korean americans in 2005, and now has close to 60 stores across southern california and new york. people have been raving about it, and a lot are willing to wait 30-45 minutes at times for just a cup of pinkberry. i can't tell if pinkberry is worth the wait since i still haven't tried it, but according to reviews, a lot of the new brands mentioned above are comparable and some even better. i also read an article on pinkberry, saying that it's not uncommon to find a pinkberry next to a starbucks. well, pinkberry did receive funding from the starbucks foundation to start their stores in new york city.
fro-yo could just be another fad or trend in the bay area - like how tapioca milk tea attacked us about 10 years ago. the groupies have swarmed over to fro-yo shops from their usual tapioca cafes, but let's see how long it'll take before another trend invades.
amongst all the fro-yo brands, I still like pinkberry the best, for their texture and subtle sweetness.
ReplyDeleteI heard Red Mango is the one who started the trend in the homeland... however pinkberry beat them to the stateside.