Frozen assets
Finding inspiration in Frozziyo’s nonfat yogurt flavors
By Dan O'Heron 08/20/2009
On a recent mid-August day at noon, my friend said that the door handle on her car was hotter than the hinge on the gate to hell. Desperate for something cold and wet, yet satisfying, for lunch, she said that she was lucky to happen upon the new Frozziyo during this all-you-can-eat frozen yogurt month.
“It was better than being in an ice cream factory. It was better than Ghirardelli’s,” she carried on.
Better than Ghirardelli’s? I couldn’t buy that. When Ghirardelli’s closed in Old Pasadena last year, I cried. I felt my friend’s claim was much exaggerated; that yogurt would cut no ice with me. I had reasons to be skeptical over any claims made on behalf of yogurt.
When I was a boy, my mother used to say that mashed potatoes were inside of lima beans and that yogurt was “the new ice cream.”
Back then, yogurt, neither fruited nor frozen, tasted like something in need of a Periodic Table designation. It was awful.
Only when Mom added maple syrup to the gray blob did I play along with her deception. So entering Frozziyo the other day, I figured to be a very tough customer.
Before making a purchase, I was invited to sample all eight flavors of the day. Unlike at other self-serve yogurt houses, you don’t have to ask a “big-brother-is-watching” cashier for sample cups. Here, they’re in plain view for the grabbing.
With a choice of 30 toppings, plus four fresh berries, eight other fruits and nine syrups, I went on a frozen yogurt “ice capade,” and after indulging in a few inviting samples, opted for the all-you-can eat $5.99 August special.
From the menu and talks with management, I learned that all eight alternating flavors of yogurt — dispensed from mix-and-match, self-service units — are natural, nonfat, gluten-free, trans- and saturated-fat-free and organic-based, with low levels of sodium and cholesterol. In addition, they are kosher-dairy certified and a good source of calcium, riboflavin and vitamins
B-2 and C.
While I was getting off on the delicious taste of everything — especially the cookies and cream, mango and the assorted berry mix — I was keenly interested in the reputed antioxidant, anti-aging qualities of the Brazilian acai berry yogurt as I mixed it with original vanilla tart.
The night before, I had attended a diet seminar at Bar Celona restaurant, 46 E. Colorado Blvd., Old Pasadena, in which Carol Berg Sloan, a nutrition consultant for the California Walnut Commission, spoke about antioxidant qualities of the walnut. She said a body of new scientific evidence shows that animals on walnut diets have demonstrated greater physical and mental acuities as they age.
Now if the anti-aging properties in the acai berry are equal to the walnut’s — and since I plan to return for more delicious doses of acai and vanilla — I should be able to sit up and beg, play with a ball of yarn or roll over for years to come.
With so many interesting combos of farmer’s market-fresh stuff (think green apple mixed with pomegranate yogurt, sprinkled with fresh coconut flakes on a bed of blue and black raspberries and strawberries), I think I could often eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at Frozziyo and not feel deprived in the slightest if yogurt, with its etceteras, became a mainstay of my table.
As I was leaving, Frozziyo owner Michael Mikaelian winked: “Dan, if your mother said our yogurt is ‘the new ice cream’ now, she wouldn’t feel guilty.”
For another taste of cool summer “la dolce vita,” I like to dulcify the day at The Americana at Brand, 889 Americana Way, Glendale, grabbing a frozen lemonade from the Wetzel’s Pretzels kiosk and catching a train.
Hearing the happy clang of the trolley as it serpentined around this new Glendale lifestyle center transports me back to halcyon yesterdays when the trolley was America’s favorite car and streetcars shaped communities.
Residents on their balconies in $5,000-a-month apartments might look down on me, merrily moving along, but I don’t care. Sucking on a frosty, bracing lemonade on a trolley, nursing dreams of the sunshine of my happy youth, a feeling rolls in that is much richer than the place itself.
For smoothie sailing in any part of any town, nothing is quite as cool as the classic “Mango-a-Go-Go” — mango juice, ice and pineapple sherbet swirled at Jamba Juice 64 E. Colorado Blvd., Old Pasadena, (626/666-1500). If the yogurt yen still has me in its thrall, I go for the Banana Berry smoothie, chilled with blueberries, apple-strawberry juice, raspberry sherbet, banana and nonfat frozen yogurt. n
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I read the review of Frozziyo online. I learned the address of Bar Celona, Americana and Jamba Juice (I even got the phone number for Jamba Juice), but darned if I know where Frozziyo is. Can you please include the address of the place actually being reviewed in a way that's easily seen? Like at the beginning or the end??