Tickled Pinkberry

Years ago I kept hearing all this hype about Pinkberry - a frozen yogurt shop whose product inspired something akin to a cult following on the west coast. It has since expanded into a chain making its way all the way over into Asia. While I have visited their web site, got their freaky song stuck in my head, and mapped out locations to visit from LA to NYC (in case I ever had time), I had not yet had the pleasure of tasting the stuff. That changed today.

My assistant manager and I had spent the morning visiting grocery stores in Marina del Rey, CA taking note of prices and product assortments (only on the west coast could you seriously sell pancake mix for $10), and we needed a break. Luckily, there was a little Pinkberry shop nearby.

Calling the place a shop is generous - it was more like an a broom closet where an anime bomb went off with crazy colors and bright happy patterns assailing you from the narrow walls. After tasting a sample, we both settled on the original Pinkberry flavor (which is neither pink nor does it taste much like berries). The also had pomegranate and green tea flavors, but we'll save those for another time.

I had mine topped with white chocolate shavings and Cap'n Crunch cereal. The taste was more tangy and yogurty than standard frozen yogurt. It was incredibly thick, just rich enough to be satifying without making you feel like a fat horse after eating a cup of it. It also melted very little in the 10 minutes between when we picked them up, transported them to our noon meeting and started devouring them, which concerns me just a bit - but it is supposedly all natural . . . .

I can't say it changed my life or turned me into a zealot, but if all frozen yogurt tasted this good, I would certainly eat it more often.