It’s the beginning of another semester, meaning that it’s once again time for a perennially short-lived Bwog tradition. 2Girls1Snack takes you around the neighborhood to explore the many tasty (and often not-so-tasty) foods and drinks of MoHi. We won’t disclose which 2Writers wrote this article, but they follow in the footsteps of 2Girls across history in their search for dessert. This time, the snack is frozen yogurt, ice cream’s recently popular distant cousin.

Café East

The journey begins…

We began our journey in the friendly confines of Lerner at Café East. While we’d never personally seen anyone order frozen yogurt at the on-campus eatery, we decided to try our luck. Suited to go well with bubble tea or a hot summer afternoon, the dessert was an odd experience to eat inside right before a snowstorm. We went for mango as opposed to original tart (if you want tart yogurt, just eat normal, non-dessert yogurt), which limited our toppings choices.

The mango frozen yogurt was refreshing, if a bit too chemically flavored. The lingering tart flavor of the yogurt base mixed nicely with the mango, with neither taste overpowering the other. The whole thing was very cold, with the blueberries on top feeling frozen more than anything else. The texture wasn’t particularly smooth, but it would certainly be pleasant in a different season. It struck us as a fine option for students not looking to go too far for their frozen yogurt, but was certainly not on the gourmet end of the spectrum.

Cost: $4.50 for 8 oz. with 2 toppings.
Flavors: 2, mango and tart.
Toppings: 16
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Häagen-Dazs

…and quickly turns sour.

Sophoclean woe is due to those who enter Häagen-Dazs looking for frozen yogurt. The store is an ice cream shop, not a frozen yogurt shop, and the convergence of conflicting impulses of these two goals causes a dairy disaster. On one hand, Häagen-Dazs seems to want to sell frozen yogurt like soft-serve ice cream, with a chocolate option, a vanilla option, and a swirl option. However, they have somehow gotten the idea that frozen yogurt should be “healthy” and have signs that promise this dessert is sugar and fat free.

These two conflicting ideas only get worse as you eat the frozen yogurt. The sweetness of vanilla or chocolate clashes with the tartness of the yogurt, and, save for a melty texture, the whole thing is down right unpleasant to eat. The topping selection is similarly uninspiring.

Cost: $4.54 for small with toppings
Flavors: 2, with the option of a swirl that combines vanilla and chocolate
Toppings: 10
Rating: 1 out of 5 Stars

Pinkberry

Not pretty, but tasty!

When the frozen yogurt boom took off around 2010, consumers were treated to two disappointments. First, some overpaid advertising agent nicknamed it “froyo” and not “frogurt.” Second, in the quest to top ice cream stores, frozen yogurt stores imitated and exceeded their forebearers: dozens of flavors and an mind-boggling choice of toppings were available. The tyranny of unlimited options trumped the motivation to make these choices any good, and the desire for a frozen yogurt paradise was rarely satisfied.

Pinkberry, at least in its Morningside Heights location, seems to have avoided these flaws. Although they have a much larger selection than any competitor in the area, they are not self-serve, in either yogurt or topping, and they have kept their flavors to a short, well-curated list.

They are not self-serve, and this is to their benefit: by nudging you to a limited number of options, you can get a complete meal, not a Frankenstein’s monster assembly of differently flavored frozen yogurts. The pomegranate we had was very good, even if you never eat the actual fruit, and the vanilla had, unlike at Häagen-Dazs, a good combination of sweet and tart in its taste. The toppings we got were fine, and the others on display looked equally appetizing.

Cost: $5.75 for small with toppings
Flavors: 8
Toppings: 25
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Tea Magic

Maybe pretty, but not tasty!

Our journey ended at Tea Magic, which, much like Café East, specializes in tea but happens to have a frozen yogurt machine. Between their two flavors, tart and green tea, we went for the specialty. The result… just didn’t quite work out. Maybe it was because it was our fourth frozen yogurt visit of the day (although one girl was still plowing through the third cup at Pinkberry). The green tea frozen yogurt, which was artificially greener than a bottle of Mountain Dew, didn’t taste too much like green tea, yogurt, or anything else.

The mochi topping was too chewy and doughy to go well with any dessert. The texture was icy and a bit too thick to enjoy properly before it started to melt. And the unappealing overall taste made it best suited to very slow nibbling during a long conversation about something far too deep for frozen desserts. This is where you should come if you want green tea frozen yogurt. However, we don’t know why you would want green tea frozen yogurt.

Cost: $4.45 for a small with 1 topping.
Flavors: 2, green tea and tart.
Toppings: 18
Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

An array of yogurt probably still warmer than the current temperature via Bwog Staff