Another DC cupcake war contender: Red Velvet cupcakery

I tried Red Velvet (the lime and red velvet flavors) when they first opened and remember being indifferent. They seem to have stepped up their game a bit since then. Pretty impressive presentation, right?

We liked the chocolate ganache better than the red velvet, but both were good. If chocolate ganache is your thing, I still recommend the Gianduja cupcake from Hello Cupcake over this though. Sorry, Red Velvet. That Italian hazelnut paste in the Gianduja edged you out.

However, Red Velvet recently did have a limited-time flavor that we thought was pretty amazing: honey fig. We bought the very last one of the day. I had to mentally will the woman in front of me not to buy it. The honey buttercream, paired with the cooked fig center and flavorful cake was heaven. Although not exactly ecofriendly, I appreciate how the individual box kept the cupcake intact on the journey home. (Some places give you individual cupcakes in a bag, so half the frosting winds up stuck to the bag).

I’m also really happy that they partner with Tangysweet. The Tangysweet in Penn Quarter is right next door to Red Velvet. Plus, the Dupont Circle Tangysweet location actually carries 4-5 flavors of Red Velvet’s cupcakes on any given day, so you can get your froyo and your cupcake on–at the same time!

Win all the white chocolate mousse froyo you could possibly eat

TCBY is a sentimental favorite. First, it’s been around since the early 80s, looong before Pinkberry was even a thought in its founder’s head. Second, there was a TCBY in my hometown that I frequented as a pimply teen, and I’ve never gotten sick of their white chocolate mousse flavor. (Note: If anyone from TCBY happens to be reading, please defrost your fruit toppings before serving them!)

Which leads me to the TCBY store giveaway. Make a video and you could win your own store. Which means, if you wanted, you could stick your head under the nozzle and dispense the stuff directly into your mouth. I can think of nothing better right now.

Yocake (Montgomery Mall) is open

Frozen yogurt and cupcakes. In a mall, no less. Not a bad combination to bring to the masses. Also, it seems like a pretty sound business model. Since frozen yogurt sales suffer during the colder months, the cupcakes can pick up the slack, like at Red Velvet-TangySweet. (TangySweet rolled out a gourmet hot chocolate last winter before it began offering cupcakes). Meanwhile, Sweet Green’s Sweetflow Mobile is going to keep rolling this winter, but still figuring out how it’s going to diversify its products for the cold-weather months.

Anyway, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the opening of Yocake (see related post) and went this past weekend to try it out.

http://pievcake.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/yogurt-cake-yocake/

The storefront looked like a cross between a cupcakery, with its platters of cupcakes, and Iceberry, with its TV screens.

Yogurt: It reminded us of the frozen yogurt at Sweet Green (true to the flavor of vanilla yogurt that you’d pick up in the dairy case) minus the sour tang. We liked it but missed the tartness.

Hazelnut-praline-ganache cupcake: The ganache was everything you want a ganache to be. Rich, creamy and slightly bitter. The cake had a cinnamon-type swirl with pecan pieces throughout. I liked it; Mr X-sXe found it a little dry. We both wished there was more icing, but it’s probably hard to layer it with a ganache of that consistency.

Would we go back? We probably wouldn’t drive out of our way, but if we were at the mall and needed a snack, definitely.

rendezvous with the sweetflowmobile

It’s good to know the food truck thing is slowly catching on in DC. I’ve been lobbying for a dessert truck like the one in NYC, despite the implications for my blood sugar. Anyway, sweetgreen [sic] went mobile with its frozen yogurt this summer (follow @sweetflowmobile  for location updates), making multiple stops around downtown DC.

I finally caught up with them last week, and was pleasantly surprised that they had a $2 sugar cone option. It’s a slightly smaller serving than the small cup and a whole lot cheaper. The bad part is that by the time I’d walked two blocks from the truck, I’d inhaled the entire thing.

frozen yogurt + cake = yocake

Strolling through the food court at Montgomery Mall today, I passed a sign for Yocake, a winning concept in dessert places: a froyo cupcakery. Yocake’s website is still under construction, but they’re scheduled to open this fall. It remains to be seen whether the goods will be any good. I’ll keep you posted.

www.yocake.com

***Update: They opened the weekend of September 26th. Here’s the post.***

http://pievcake.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/yocake-montgomery-mall-is-open/

Stockpiling Tangysweet frozen yogurt

I've begun stockpiling Tangysweet's green tea froyo. And you can, too!

My friend JDang is obsessed with Tangysweet. Obsessed to the point that she stockpiles them in her freezer to enjoy throughout the week. She once brought a Tangysweet to work for breakfast, if that tells you anything. Her all-time stockpiling record was 7 mediums and 1 large in one go. That’s a serious commitment, as far as freezer shelf space.

JDang realized in her NYC Pinkberry days that froyo doesn’t melt the way ice cream does, so you have at least a 30-minute window to get them into your freezer.  (I tested this in 70+ degree weather. Meltage amounted to less than 10% from store to freezer. I’m not sure how well Tangysweet fares in DC summers, though.)

I admit, I’ve taken to stockpiling too. Not only does it not melt much, but it doesn’t lose anything in consistency or flavor. It’s nice that when a Tangysweet craving hits, it’s right there at my disposal. On the other hand, this is an expensive habit to keep up.

Though JDang and I both agree that Tangysweet is the best froyo in town–correction, in the country–we can’t agree on our favorite flavors. I’m for green tea with its lemon-honey notes, while guava is my #2 (only available at the 7th Street location). Jess digs the guava the most, followed by pomegranate (sometimes available as a featured flavor).

Start stockpiling here: http://www.tangysweet.com/

domo arigato, mr. yogato!

this weekend, mimi and i continued our serious investigation into dc’s yogurt places by visting the newly opened mr. yogato, located on 1515 17th street (right off p street) in dupont circle. the store bills itself as “the funnest yogurt experience you’ll ever have” which is a pretty accurate description. it’s hard to beat the fun at any yogurt shop with rules like these.
mimi and i both scooped up a 20% discount by getting our foreheads stamped:


we immediately liked the fact that mr. yogato had more variety than the other yogurt chains. it has four flavors – soft, tangy, mango, and mojito – and a huge variety of toppings, including many that aren’t on the menu, but just happen to be on hand. (if anyone does end up trying the olive oil topping, please let me know.) unlike other yogurt places, it also has a sliding scale for toppings, so that you don’t have to get more than one if you don’t want to.
mimi tried a small mango with strawberries:

while i tried an original tangy with coconut, reese’s peanut butter cups, and cookie crisp:

the mango flavor actually tasted like mango in a firm, but not overpowering way – unlike some other yogurt we’ve had. the tangy flavor was less tangy than expected. both of us were slightly turned off by the texture of the yogurt, which was more granular and watery than other places. it melted rather quickly. still, it tasted good.
in the end, both of us thought that tangysweet has a better base product. i, however, like the variety in toppings and flavors at mr. yogato, and am a total sucker for the cute factor, so i’d recommend it more highly than tangysweet. mimi, however, is remaining with her original favorite.

we just heard a rumor that pinkberry is going to be opening in georgetown soon, so we hope we can continue this series!

dessert tour: the bay area!

just got back from a week in the bay area, and i had a great dessert time!
here’s how it went down:

day #1, after a delicious vietnamese pho blowout, we stop at a nondescript place called “bud’s” so that people can get milkshakes. i walk in and discover FROYO! it was delicious – this was like tangysweet, for the dc readers, except cheap. this was the child-sized portion. don’t ask me how child-sized gets to be so huge. i couldn’t finish it all myself.

day #3, we stop for a late-night snack at au coqolet, a french diner in berkeley. i am intrigued by the corn and coconut cake on the menu. it is very, very thick. it is also not as moist as i would like it to be. i should have learned to just stay with desserts that sound good, not desserts that sound intriguing.

day #5, i have the best dessert of the trip – the raw chocolate hazelnut cake at cafe gratitude. yes, a raw organic vegan restaurant managed to kill on the bay area desserts. this cake was a little piece of heaven, and has made me crave creamy, mousse-y cakes ever since it crossed my lips. the dessert is officially called “i am bliss.” there was never a better description for anything i’ve eaten.

day #7, i had eaten a huge breakfast at rudy’s can’t fail cafe. so i wasn’t that hungry when we stopped into a cafe for some coffee before going to see TRON on the big screen. but boy oh boy, when you have a dessert named “luscious chocolate cake,” i’m going to have to try it. it was pretty luscious, i have to admit.

and while this picture of coffee isn’t dessert, i feel a need to link to it here because i was woefully delinquent in taking photos of what accompanied it – a fantastic waffle. we went to blue bottle coffeeto try out their siphon coffee made on a japanese machine. it was strong stuff, but the waffle that accompanied it was pitch perfect.

so that was my trip! i did have a few other desserts (great bubble milk tea, a yummy elephant ear) here and there, and a few other desserts that i missed out on (like the veggie treats at millennium), but i was overall pretty impressed. for a land where people are supposedly super healthy, there was certainly no shoddiness with the sweets.

DC yogurt tour, cont’d

Juice Zone in Foggy Bottom is inside one of the George Washington University buildings on 23rd & G St, NW. You gotta show a driver’s license or some other form of ID to get in there. So it’s probably the most well-protected frozen yogurt in DC.

Ann and I originally stopped by on our DC yogurt tour, but they’re closed on Sundays. So I went back the next day to sample it. At $4.94 (incl. tax) for a small with 3 toppings, it wasn’t cheap. I got chocolate chips, blackberries and slivered raw almonds. Like the other places, they claim their yogurt has live active cultures, and the fruit toppings are fresh, not frozen fruit.

The flavor was similar to the frozen yogurt at Sweet Green–it tasted like vanilla Dannon. Somehow it seemed a bit less flavorful. Either that or my taste buds got numb while I was eating it. Since this place is closer than the other two, I’ll go there if I’m desperate for fro-yo. The security in the building may make me think twice, though.

dc frozen yogurt tour

today, mimi and i went on a quest – a hot, sweaty quest – to settle a question which has recently arisen in the dc dessert community.

who makes the best frozen yogurt in dc? tangysweet or sweet green?

first, i had to start things off with a bit of vegan soft-serve at sticky fingers.

it was vanilla and rich and much denser than i expected. i only had a few spoonfuls, though, since i knew what type of gastronomical challenges were awaiting me later in the day.

mimi and i met up in georgetown, where we headed down m street to sweet green, assiduously dodging all the sweaty bodies in the crowds. ick ick ick. we were happy to finally get into the air-conditioned sweet green, a healthy fast-food joint that serves nothing but salads and frozen yogurt. we paid four dollars for a small serving plus three toppings, which were limited to berries and a few crunchy things. they were also disturbingly close to the crunchy toppings for the salad. i was a little concerned that an inattentive clerk might mix wasabi peas into my yogurt. we opted for a relatively healthy combo of blackberries, raspberries, and coconut:

now, mimi had been talking up the way in which sweet green’s owners had apparently developed this unique yogurt formula, so i probably had much-too-high expectations for the taste. the problem? sweet green tastes like plain yogurt, except a little colder. i found myself wondering why i had paid $4 for a taste that I could get for 99 cents at the safeway. it got mildly better as we worked our way through the cup, but it was a letdown. the plus? sweet green’s seating is limited, but it’s located right across the street from the shady francis scott key park.

we then trekked through the unrelenting sun-drenched streets of dc to go to tangysweet, the latest froyo emporium to open in dc. the drawbacks? no place to sit down, and the place was super-crowded and filled with people i sort of know, but don’t want to see on weekends when i’m looking decidedly non-worklike. the plus? delicious yogurt. for $4.50, mimi and i got a generous serving of plain with three toppings.

she was craving the mango, but i wanted to partake of the ample cereal-based options at the store. i got fruit loops and raisin-laced granola. and yes, i know that mango and fruit loops don’t actually go together.
both of us were wowed by the flavor of the yogurt – it was sweeter and zingier than sweet green. mimi lamented the fact that she was likely going to spent the rest of the summer addicted to tangysweet, even though she lives just far enough away from it to make it unwalkable on a daily basis, especially when the deep humidity hits.

we’ve got some tips for some other froyo places, so keep checking back for more reviews…