Slide Show: Froyo Face-Off
We begin at Yogurtland, a Cali company with big plans for Seattle. The flavors—so many! Where to start?!—range from fruity (mango, strawberry) and exotic (lychee, taro) to candy-like (chocolate coconut truffle, vanilla wafer) to downright questionable. Devil’s food cupcake batter? All told Yogurtland offers 16 varieties on any given day, among the most of our stops.
We settled on Yogurtland’s strawberry, plain, and mango. The first was nice enough, if not a tad too reminiscent of soft serve. Though not as tart as we would have liked, the plain was highly delicious and got a gold star for texture; other plains we’d sample would clump into craggy nuggets. The mango, meanwhile, tasted of unflavored yogurt mixed with something generic. Also: beware the gummy bear—the gooey guys add more color than yum.
Where are we, Shibuya? Customers choose the color—all neon, of course—and character—all Hello Kitty—of their spoons.
Next stop: Zoëyogurt in Greenlake. While megachains dominate the market, several mom-and-pop shops have entered the game locally. Tom Hudson says he and his wife Donna visited Southern California a year and a half ago and upon return, noticed a dearth of froyo here in Seattle. So they opened Zoëyogurt. They attended "Yo U" classes to learn the ropes. Since March the Hudsons have been churning 70 different flavors, a dozen of which are available every day. (The aforementioned Peaks opened after the tasting trip.)
And what of the prices? They’re pretty cheap! Every spot has its own system, but we’ll say the average is 40 cents per ounce. At Zoëyogurt this hefty serving plus two others totaled $8.40.
Like to pucker up? Zoëyo’s plain brought the tartness we sought at Yogurtland. Cake flavors, we learned, like the "batter" mix here and the red velvet chocolate at our next stop, are best avoided.
Fremont’s Cool Whirled proved the favorite stop. The selection is noticeably smaller (and, what’s this, just one type of spoon?), but every flavor we sampled (except for that funky red velvet chocolate) was a winner. The texture was creamy and luxe while the piquant yogurt tasted natural and healthy. The cloying artificial sugariness we’d found in others just wasn’t there.
Don’t miss Cool Whirled’s refreshing raspberry pomegranate—it’s like eating a bowl of freshly picked fruit. The honey lavender and thin mint are also excellent.
Like Yogurtland, California-based Menchies has sprouted many area offshoots, with more due soon in West Seattle and Puyallup. Like Yogurtland, Menchies ups the cute ante: note the swirly coiffed mascot.
The Queen Anne Menchies lacked the spic-and-span sparkle of the three other spots. And while the chocolate-vanilla mix disappointed—it was powdery, and tasted of low quality ingredients—the pineapple packed a tasty punch.
