I just got back from New York and all of my friends up there said that I should start blogging about food due to my constant rambling about how good or bad the food was. After the fun I had writing my recent rave review about Estancia on Yelp recently, I tend to agree - so here it goes:
Pinkberry - the food, the myth, and the legend.
Pinkberry is the new dessert yogurt\ice cream craze that's sweeping LA and New York. Pinkberry is so popular that people line up around the block at all hours of the day just to get a taste. While it's sort of an ethnic Asian dessert, apparently Pinkberry has gone so mainstream in NY and LA that even the characters on the show "The OC" eat there regularly.
How crazy are people for Pinkberry? The first time I went it was 3:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday and there were 10 people in line. 5 minutes later we ordered and the line was out the door and at least 20 people deep. After we finished eating, the line wrapped half way around the block and was at least 50 people deep!
What's so great about this place? Why all of the madness for a 6 dollar cup of ice cream? Honestly, I am not sure that it lives up to the hype but it does taste pretty good.
So what exactly is a Pinkberry?
Apparently Pinkberry is just a random name assigned to this Asian yogurt flavored soft serve ice cream - think TCBY with a twist. This Asian yogurt flavor is nothing new, I remember as a kid having all sorts of products that taste almost the same as Pinkberry. There's yogurt flavored soft drinks, candies, and yogurt flavored sake and soju. Apparently, a few years ago some enterprising Koreans decided that it was time to put this tasty yogurt flavor into ice cream. I heard that Pinkberry is not the original yogurt ice cream company, but it was the first to make it big in the States.
How does it taste?
If you've ever had Asian yogurt flavored products, Pinkberry tastes exactly how you would expect it to, just a bit more tart. If you've never had Asian yogurt treats, it's a little hard to describe the taste. Think normal yogurt but sweeter and lighter, with a tart kick. It has a pretty clean taste to it, and it's not overly sweet like other ice cream. Sometimes with American ice cream I will only be able to taste the first couple of bites then the sweetness will overpower my taste buds and I'm just eating cold texture after that.
Personally I was a bit underwhelmed with the regular Pinkberry flavor probably because of all the hype built up around it. When I took my first bite I thought that it tastes exactly like the same yogurt flavor I've had for half of my life. I was expecting something totally new. After about half of a cup though, the taste had grown on me a bit. I could see why some people are in love with this stuff.
Texture-wise Pinkberry is similar to soft serve ice cream - it's pretty fluffy and airy right out of the machine. Pinkberry is a pretty light dessert and it wont feel sluggish after eating one. Another thing that fuels the Pinkberry craze is the fact that they offer fresh fruit toppings such as blueberries, strawberries, mango, kiwi, blackberries, etc with no sugar added. I'm a big fan of eating healthier, but you might want to not mix in the toppings with the yogurt because the tartness of the fruit doesn't always go that well with the sweet and tart yogurt.
To get past this problem, I ate my fruit as a palette cleanser on the side (sort of like a pickle for a sandwich or pickled ginger for sushi). The best fruits for me were strawberry and mango - the others were a bit too tart. They have other options like mochi (rice balls), cap'n crunch, oreos, and fruity pebbles too.
There is also a green tea Pinkberry flavor which I think is better than the original. Green tea is huge in Asia - and I'm a big fan of all things green tea. That said, the green tea Pinkberry is a little hit and miss. They almost certainly use Japanese green tea powder in the mix, but the powder was not distributed evenly in the ice cream. This inconsistency makes some bites of the green tea flavored Pinkberry taste the same as the regular, and some bites make you feel like a bag of green tea punched you in the face. While these punch you in the face bites taste good, it's way too much. I would rather have one consistent taste instead of constantly having to guess if the next bite will be good or bad.
Advice - don't get fruit in the green tea pinkberry - you will regret it. Something about the flavor combination isn't right. I noticed that they had a mochi topping after I had finished mine - that would probably be the best flavor combination for the green tea.
Pinkberry is being marketed as healthy - and for the most part it's true. The Green Tea Pinkberry seems to be very good for you, and the regular pinkberry seems like a relatively light dessert - a little less sugar than a can of Coke. here are the nutrition facts:
Regular Pinkberry
Green Tea Pinkberry
--- Pinkberry Green Tea - best eaten plain
Closing out, While Pinkberry tastes good, there are a couple of downsides. It seems pretty random as to how bad the line will be no matter what time of day - be prepared for a wait. Also, the ice cream is pretty expensive for what you get. The cheapest thing there is the $3 small 8oz and because each topping cost a dollar extra, it's easy to end up paying 6 bucks for a small with 2-3 of toppings. They also kind of cheat you on te ice cream by making the center of you ice cream swirl hollow instead of packing the ice cream in like other places do.
Would I recommend Pinkberry? If you have never had it - sure give it a try. It's good people watching and the stores are pretty cool looking inside. It's pretty crowded and sort of an 'event' so take a friend or two. If you go with good friends who don't mind sharing, I would recommend splitting one of each flavor - get the green tea with no toppings or possibly mochi and the regular with one or 2 of the sweeter fruits.
Going to Pinkberry is good times for newbies just to see what the craze is all about but i wouldn't go there all the time unless one was close by or I was taking someone who had never been. If Pinkberry fixed their green tea consistency problem though, I would be tempted to go more often. The line is kind of a downer too, but it seems that a lot of copycat places are springing up so maybe go to those if you want a similar product without the wait.
*** 2.5 out of 4 stars
