Avocado or Matcha

On one of our Trader Joe's shopping trips this summer, I came across some new flavors in the Greek whole milk yogurt line that I just had to try. I'm always up for trying new yogurt flavors, especially ones that are unique. I didn't actually get around to trying them until weeks later since we were eating the yogurt in the fridge in order of expiration date, so hopefully the availability of flavors on the shelves hasn't completely changed in such a short time.

The first was avocado citrus, and this one has been pretty widely publicized by both TJ's and the food sites, probably because people love talking about avocado. The citrus here comes from blood orange concentrate, also not your typical yogurt flavor, which brightens up the flavor a lot. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but the avocado gave the yogurt an earthiness that I'm not sure I really liked that much. It was fine, but I probably won't get this one again.

The other new yogurt on the shelves on that shopping trip was the matcha green tea flavor. Throughout the year, TJ's has seemed to be experimenting with a bunch of new matcha products, like the Joe-Joe's and some other stuff, so the yogurt seemed like a natural next step. Oddly, there is almost nothing online about this yogurt except some posts from 2007-2008. It's almost like it doesn't exist, which is a little worrisome for me since I liked this one so much more than the avocado citrus which earned a spot in the Fearless Flyer.

It completely slipped my mind that I should take note of the ingredients in this yogurt, but I think at the time I had just expected that it would be widely reviewed online. I'm not sure what exactly was in it but you can definitely taste the matcha. I had never had tea-flavored yogurt before, but after eating this, I loved it and wanted to buy a case of it if it was still in stock. The flavor was so light and clean and really pleasing, a nice way to start the day. I really hope they're still carrying this, because I need more of it!

Meyer Lemon Pinkberry

A few days after making the Meyer lemon bars, A decided to redeem his free birthday treat at Pinkberry. When we walked in, we saw they had a new seasonal flavor - Meyer lemon. After trying it, he ordered a small Meyer lemon yogurt with mochi, shredded coconut, and cinnamon crumble (which was the recommended topping in their poster).

A's review: I was really happy with my choices for this because I wanted to turn this into something of a Meyer lemon pie. The cinnamon graham cracker crumble and coconut were the base flavors to pair with the Meyer lemon yogurt, and I added the mochi because I like mochi, and they would be a very loose interpretation of the meringue topping. The sweet and tart yogurt worked really well with the unsweetened coconut and cinnamony, sugary crumble. The mochi wasn't really a meringue substitute, but I still liked it just fine.

M's review: I thought the Meyer lemon yogurt itself was really good - sweet, tart, very bright. While I liked the combination that A put together, it was a little on the heavier, sweeter side. I think I probably would have paired the yogurt with raspberries and mochi, but I personally prefer fruit flavors when it comes to yogurt. I really liked the lightness of the yogurt flavor itself and would get it again.

Maple and Ancient Grains

I was supposed to write this post days ago but got a little bit distracted that night by the release of a new generation of Pokemon in Pokemon Go. Oops. That distraction is a big part of why we haven't posted over the weekend, not any type of holiday traveling. Anyway, back to it with a yogurt review.

I previously mentioned interesting Fage Crossovers yogurt combinations when I reviewed the carrot-pistachio one. When we were at the store that time, I picked up two different types, and the second was this maple syrup blended Greek yogurt with ancient grain granola. As I looked back over my purchases from that weekend, I realized that I'm a complete sucker for anything that has "ancient grains" in it. I'm kind of obsessed with ancient grains since they're good for you, so getting this one was a no-brainer. As far as which ancient grains were in it, there was amaranth, millet, quinoa, and chia seeds.

I tried the maple syrup yogurt part first on its own and found it really, really sweet, too sweet for my tastes (which quite honestly has me worried about other maple-flavored yogurts in the fridge). However, with the ancient grains mixed in, it was much better. Although it was still a little on the sweeter side, it was much more bearable. I liked the addition of the grains which were hearty and had a nice crunch to them. They would be a good topping to any yogurt flavor and were definitely my favorite part.

Carrot Ginger Yogurt

Another trip to Target, another yogurt sale. I love finding new and interesting ones to try, like this Fage Crossover. Carrot ginger Greek yogurt with roasted pistachios? That's not exactly common in the yogurt aisle. I'm also a sucker for all the yogurts where you can flip toppings on to the yogurt, like the Chobani Flips (which reminds me that I really need to finish my post about those).

The thing I found most interesting about this yogurt was that it at least sounded like savory yogurt. It wasn't my first time having vegetable-flavored yogurt (the tasty but very pricey Blue Hill ones come to mind), but probably the first time I had ever seen one on shelves outside of Whole Foods. I was pleased to find that this wasn't some sort of super sweet carrot cake-flavored yogurt, but it actually just tasted like carrots and there were bits of carrots mixed in to the yogurt which gave it texture. The roasted pistachios on the side were exactly what they sounded like, although I had expected them to be chopped up or something instead of whole pistachios.

Overall, I thought this yogurt was okay. The creaminess of the yogurt muted the flavor of the carrot a little bit, but you could still tell that it was vegetable yogurt, so I liked that part. The pistachios were fine, but I found them harder to eat with the yogurt whole and think they would have been better chopped. I also wasn't really a fan of them together with the yogurt and preferred the two parts separately. I probably wouldn't get this again as there are so many other yogurts I like better (and so many other flavors to try), but I applaud Fage for putting something different out there. It was good, but just not my favorite flavor combination. I see on their website that they have a couple of savory yogurts with almonds - tomato basil and olive thyme - and I am very interested in trying those someday.

Chocolate Cherry Whips

If you haven't already guessed from all the yogurt posts, I love trying out different types of yogurt. When we stopped by Target last weekend, they were having a sale on Yoplait and I picked up one that was new to me - the chocolate cherry flavor of the Greek 100 calorie Whips line. I think it was my first time having Greek yogurt from Yoplait in general as well as anything from their Whips line (which I guess is named that because they are supposed to be light and fluffy).

I was a little wary when I first opened the yogurt and started mixing it up. The texture reminded me of some types of frozen yogurt I had before, not very creamy and more like ice. But when I started stirring it more and more, it took on a really creamy consistency, more like what I would expect from something with the name Whips. The texture in the end was actually pretty good, creamy and smooth.

The chocolate and cherry were all in the flavorings of the yogurt, as there weren't any chocolate or cherry pieces in the yogurt, at least not as far as I could tell. It was pretty good though - sweet but not too sweet, with nice hints of cherry that didn't taste artificial. I really liked this yogurt, although I wish I had saved it for dessert or a late night snack instead of eating it for breakfast. It would have worked well for an end of day treat, and I would get this again.

Frozenyo

After our tasty dinner at El Jibarito, my parents told us that they wanted to take us to an ice cream place that they had discovered on a previous visit to San Juan. A was pretty excited since he loves ice cream, and I'm always happy to try someplace new in our explorations. We walked around Old San Juan for a little bit since they couldn't remember exactly where it was, and then we ended up at Frozenyo on Calle Tetuan.

Our first thought was, "This isn't ice cream..." We don't have any issues with frozen yogurt, but we were expecting to see an ice cream shop and this wasn't that. Frozenyo was one of those yogurt shops where you filled up the cup yourself with the flavor you wanted and then added toppings to it (we think), not like Pinkberry. Since getting ice cream or frozen yogurt on the ship was extremely unreliable (machines constantly broken), we were happy to be getting any type of frozen treat.

While we remember going to Frozenyo and we remember eating frozen yogurt, this is the point where this review is going to fall apart. It's a perfect example of why we should have finished all of our Quantum reviews prior to the date it shipped off to China. We barely remember anything about the yogurt. That's not to say it was bad. It's just been two years. And unfortunately our memories aren't what they used to be. And our notes for that trip were scant, and in the case of the yogurt, nonexistent.

Did we get one frozen yogurt or two? We think we got two, but why didn't we take a photo of the one A got? We think he got something chocolate-flavored, because I have a vague memory of eating chocolate with cookie dough toppings that looked just like this but I don't remember for sure. What flavor yogurt did I get here? Pink lemonade? Kiwi strawberry? It looks pink to me. Did we try different flavors before we chose? What did we like? What did we not like? I know that my toppings were strawberry, kiwi, and cookie dough because that's in the picture, and I remember the cookie dough being good, but that's about it. I also remember that we sat outside eating our yogurt, which was quite a pleasant experience on a warm December night.

We wish we remembered more about this, but unfortunately we don't. What we do remember is that when we were in DC earlier this year, we saw a Frozenyo when we were walking around Columbia Heights. We hadn't known that they started in DC at that time (since we hadn't looked them up yet to write this post), so that was a surprise for us. We had a giant dinner that day and no room for yogurt so we didn't go check them out. Hopefully the rest of our Quantum reviews aren't going to be as lacking in detail as this one.

Icelandic Yogurt

On a recent visit to Target, they had a giant sale on yogurt. One thing we noticed was that the Icelandic yogurt was on sale. Since we prefer not to spend over $1 for yogurt, we had never really tried them before, as they are usually closer to $1.50 or $2 each. We were excited to try Icelandic yogurt for the first time, and picked up a whole bunch of flavors - Siggi's blueberry and Smari key lime for both of us, Smari coconut for A, and Smari vanilla for M.

A's review:
The first thing I noticed about all of the Icelandic yogurt I tried was that it was far less sweet than the US brands. I liked that a lot as the sweetness tended to mask or overpower the flavor of the actual yogurt and the fruit/ingredients within. That being said, most of the yogurts tasted very, very similar. The lack of added sugar (which is definitely a good thing) also meant that the flavor adds weren't overly sweet as well. Because of that you definitely tasted less of those flavorings as well.

For the actual flavors, I liked the Key Lime the most as it had that bright, tartness from the key limes. The blueberry and coconut didn't really have a discernible difference in flavor, though the coconut yogurt I scraped off the lid had a very sweet, coconut flavor. That was mostly nonexistent in the yogurt cup itself which was odd. The blueberry was similar. I could see the blueberries mixed into the yogurt but didn't really taste too much of them. I really didn't mind much, as mentioned, since I just liked the flavor of the yogurt.

One final thing that I really liked about these yogurts was that both brands had removable paper labels that you can recycle. It's really cool that they did that to be a little greener and eco-conscious. It really fits in with everything that I've ever seen/read about Iceland being very eco-friendly and mindful.

M's review:
I liked these yogurts. Similar to A, I liked that they were less sweet than a lot of the yogurts being sold nowadays, especially by the bigger name brands. Even though these were thick and creamy, they were a lot lighter than the whole milk Australian yogurts we had tried earlier this year, and that fit a little better with my personal preference. I didn't notice a huge difference between the brands, but the vanilla was probably my least favorite, just because it didn't have that strong of a flavor. The key lime and the blueberry were both pretty good. If there were another sale, I'd get these again or maybe try some other flavors.

English Breakfasts

We're not really super early morning people on vacation, so breakfast for us is often just something quick in the hotel. By that, I mean something from the grocery store, like cereal bars or bananas, not room service. Although we did consider getting up early one day in London to go for a proper English breakfast, that didn't happen before the end of our trip. But we did sample a bunch of different breakfast items from the grocery store that we don't have at home.

On our visit to Waitrose on our first day in London, we picked up these Frusli bars in blueberry flavor. Out of the 2 different styles of bars that we bought, these were the ones we liked better, although they weren't that filling. The funny part to us was that this was a blueberry flavored bar, but dried blueberries themselves were much further down the ingredient list than blueberry infused dried cranberries, raisins, and fruit puree pieces (apple and blueberry). Probably a cost issue, but kind of amusing, as we considered whether it should have just been called a berry flavored bar instead. Along with all of the various fruits, there were oats, sugar, honey, a couple of different flours, and almonds. The fact that there were no ingredients in the list whose names we didn't recognize and there weren't any additives on the list is probably part of the reason we liked it, and that really came through with how healthy and natural they tasted. We also liked the texture, nice and chewy.

A couple of days later, we picked up some cheaper breakfast bars at the Morrisons grocery store downstairs from our hotel. There was a sale on these Alpen Light bars so we got 2 flavors - double chocolate and Jaffa cake. We didn't know what Jaffa cake was but guessed it was something orange and chocolate because of the box design (it pretty much was).

We didn't think these bars were as good as the Frusli bars. They were like very light granola bars, and reminded me a bit of Special K bars in how light they were. The first flavor we tried was the Jaffa cake, which we thought was okay and which A liked more than I did. They were sort of orange flavored, but mostly just tasted like artificial citrus, which is one of the things that usually turns me off of lemon and orange flavored things. The double chocolate just tasted like a standard chocolate breakfast bar, and we both liked that much more than the Jaffa cake one.

Later in the trip, we also decided to investigate some yogurts for breakfast, hoping that the active cultures would help since our systems were a little off from the traveling, the rough exhaustion from the first day, and some overindulgent eating. From the setup of the grocery stores, we concluded that the English love yogurt. One store even had an entire aisle of just yogurt. We like yogurt, so we thought that was pretty awesome. Since our hotel didn't have a refrigerator, A had to drop by Morrisons in the mornings to buy yogurt for breakfast. Thankfully it was just downstairs and close to a coffee shop for his morning coffee as well. The first one we got was this store-brand raspberry, blueberry, and cranberry bio yogurt. (Bio yogurt is supposed to have additional good bacteria added.) This seemed like pretty standard berry flavored yogurt, and A got a couple of blueberries here and there. This was fine, like yogurt we could get at home, but we were eating more for the gut benefit.

On another day, we really wanted to try to right our systems with yogurt, so A picked up 2 different Onken ones for breakfast. These seemed a bit like premium yogurts, a step up from your basic yogurt. One was apricot with whole grains, and the other was cherry. We thought both of these were better than the yogurt we had previously, but they were also more expensive so I guess we paid for that improvement. The apricot whole grain yogurt was different from other yogurt we've had since the whole grains were like little chewy bits inside the yogurt. I didn't like that one as much as the cherry one, which had big juicy cherries in it and tons of fruit flavor.

We ate some other stuff for breakfast too, like some bananas that we picked up on a Sainsbury's trip and also some potato chips once we ran out of breakfast bars (not ideal, but didn't want to buy more bars for just one day). In addition to being more convenient and cheaper than eating breakfast out, buying breakfast to eat in the room gives us a good excuse to explore local grocery stores and try local products. We were pretty happy with the results of our London breakfast exploration!

Mango Yogurt

Wow, it's been ages since we've posted. Guessing part of that is because the time we would normally spend writing, we've instead been playing Pokemon Go. We have so much to catch up on though (as if we didn't already before the game came out), so might as well start now with a review of another flavor of TJ's yogurt.

Product: Nonfat mango Greek yogurt

Price: $0.99 for 5.3 oz

Quick review: I don't know if the mango flavor was new this summer for the mango product invasion or if it was always there, but this was the first time I tried it. I was concerned that it was going to be overly or artificially sweet in flavor, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't either of those things. The yogurt uses both mango puree and actual mango pieces, so the flavor is natural and fairly mild. I especially liked coming across the pieces of mango, the texture of which reminded me of some of my favorite peach yogurts.

Buy again? Yes, definitely. Hopefully it's not just a summer thing.

Noosa Yoghurt

On Friday afternoon, A was headed back to the office from lunch when he ran across someone giving out free yoghurt (and trying to offload the rest of their supply). They had 3 different flavors, so he grabbed one of each flavor so we could both try each one. We had both seen Noosa yoghurt in the store before, but had never tried it as it was never on sale, so this was the perfect opportunity. Noosa is an Australian-style yoghurt made with whole milk, honey, and fruit purees, and having never tried Australian-style yoghurt before, we were excited to test them out.

First up, lemon.

M's review: I didn't love this one, not because of the texture or style, but the flavor. The texture was fine - very creamy and smooth. The flavor, even though it was supposed to be a natural lemon curd, just tasted a little artificial to me, like lemon candy. It's kind of the same problem I often have with orange-flavored stuff. It was okay, but I wouldn't get this flavor again.

A's review: I liked this as the lemon tasted sort of like a lemon candy. Would I have liked it more were it more like a fresh lemon flavor? Maybe, but this was still good. What struck me with this yoghurt, and something I noted in every flavor, was that this seemed creamier than most other non-Greek yogurts I had eaten in the past.

The second one we tried was blueberry.

M's review: I liked this one much better than lemon, confirming for me that the problem wasn't the brand or the style, but the flavor itself. The blueberry flavor here was really natural, and there were actual blueberries mixed in (the small wild ones, not the big ones a lot of other places use). It reminded me of when I would buy vanilla yoghurt on its own and mix in the frozen Maine wild blueberries we have in the freezer, just very natural and full of real fruit. I would get this one again.

A's review: I liked the blueberry flavor more than the lemon. It tasted more like actual blueberries (though slightly sweetened), and they were whole enough blueberries to still have a little bite to them. It was a much more naturally flavored yoghurt as compared to the lemon.

The third and final yoghurt we tried was the strawberry rhubarb.

M's review: I really liked this one, and it's tough for me to decide between this one and the blueberry as my favorite. What I liked was that this one had a mild sweetness and wasn't overly sweet like a lot of strawberry yoghurts are (the reason why I avoid a lot of them). It tasted really natural, which I also appreciated. I'm not an expert on rhubarb flavor, so I'm not sure how much of that was there, but I liked the flavor overall.

You may have noticed that the lid phrases changed in every picture but somehow through luck of the draw every single one of A's said xoxoxo!

A's review: I liked this flavor a lot. They didn't make the strawberry syrup overly sweet, and it really tasted of strawberries. The rhubarb also added a really nice texture to the yoghurt. I don't know if I liked this or the blueberry more, probably the blueberry if I'm being honest since I think the blueberry really let the overall flavor of the blueberry shine through a little more than the strawberry, but they were both really good.

Overall, we thought the Noosa yoghurts were pretty good, but we did like some flavors better than others. We would be interested in trying some of the other flavors, like maybe the Colorado-exclusive blackberry serrano, or (from those probably more widely available) blood orange or pineapple, so we'll keep an eye out for sales or good prices in the future for sure.

Vanilla Bean Yogurt

Continuing on with the Trader Joe's yogurt posts...

Product: Nonfat vanilla bean Greek yogurt

Price: $0.99 for 5.3 oz

Quick review: The first thing I noticed when I opened this yogurt was the flecks of vanilla bean. In most vanilla yogurts, you get vanilla flavor but no evidence of actual vanilla bean. Perhaps I should have expected it given the name of the yogurt, but I didn't. There was "natural vanilla flavor" in the ingredients list higher than vanilla bean, but I was impressed that it had real vanilla bean in it at all. The second thing I noticed was the texture, nice and thick like the other TJ's Greek yogurts, probably my favorite thing about their Greek yogurt line. The vanilla flavor of the yogurt wasn't especially strong, not as strong as other yogurts (even other TJ's vanilla ones), but I liked it overall.

Buy Again? Yes, unless I'm looking for a stronger flavor, in which case my vote is still for black raspberry.

Pomegranate Yogurt

Seems like March has been yogurt month on the blog. Anyway, here's another one.

Product: Nonfat pomegranate Greek yogurt

Price: $0.99 for 5.3 ounces

Quick review: After having such a good experience with the black raspberry yogurt, I decided to try the pomegranate flavor. While the texture was pretty similar, the flavors of the black raspberry were so much better. When I think of pomegranate, I think of bright and tart flavors with a little bit of sweetness, and this was more sweet than tart. It was made with pomegranate juice concentrate, but nothing about the flavor really said pomegranate other than little hints of sweet flavor here and there. It was just a pale pink colored, mildly sweet yogurt with no real distinctive fruit flavor.

Buy Again? No, not when I have the black raspberry flavor as an option. To be clear, this is a "no" only because there's a better option, not because I think it's horrible like the PB&J.

Black Raspberry Greek Yogurt

Another day, another Trader Joe's quick review (I have to think of a better name for these short spotlights).

Product: Nonfat black raspberry Greek yogurt

Price: $0.99 for 5.3 ounces

Quick review: Much better than I was expecting it to be, since I find Greek yogurt hit or miss sometimes with the flavors. (Remember the PB&J one?) The Greek yogurt I eat most often is Chobani, because that's what my parents buy cases of from Costco, and this was so much thicker which I liked better. The black raspberry flavor is also really good and not overly sweet. Tastes really natural and not the least bit artificial.

Buy Again? Yes. Greek yogurt isn't cheap, so I don't expect that I'll be loading up on cases of this, but I can definitely see picking this up every so often. Not only would it make a good breakfast again, but it would also be good for snack or even dessert.

Apricot and Mango Yogurt

Walking around Trader Joe's on recent trips, I keep looking around at how many products we've tried over the years but have never written about, and therefore can't remember what we thought about them. To move things along a little more quickly, and so we don't have to try something 3 times before we finally post about it and remember whether we want to buy it again, I'm thinking that maybe we should do a "quick review" instead for things that don't really need a lengthy post devoted to them, like this yogurt. Hopefully these quick dispatches will make us more productive and timely.

Product: "French Village" (not sure why it's French) apricot and mango yogurt

Price: $0.79 for a 6 ounce container

Quick review: Pretty good yogurt, but not especially strong flavors of apricot and mango. Didn't really taste any different from the peach yogurt we can buy at any other store.

Buy again? Maybe. Peach is one of my favorite yogurt flavors, and since this apricot and mango one was reminiscent of that, I might get it again. Yogurt at the "regular" grocery store on sale is cheaper though, so if I can get peach yogurt there, I would probably do that instead since there isn't a huge difference in taste or quality.

Our Least Favorite Yogurt

When I went to Trader Joe's last week, it was very pleasant for the first time in a long time. Maybe I had just been going at the exact wrong time all summer, but it was always insanely crowded. I already avoid Sundays and Mondays because of the ridiculous lines and crowds, but things were still crazy on Thursday afternoons which was bizarre. I even heard my first fight this summer (from an aisle over), lots of screaming. But finally, this past visit, it was peaceful and I could shop at my leisure. 

Slowly meandering through the aisles (can really only do this in Chelsea out of the Manhattan stores) and browsing meant I got to pay attention to lots of sections that I never get to because I don't want to deal with pushy or oblivious or IDGAF people just to take a look. One of those was the yogurt section where I noticed this display of peanut butter and jelly Greek yogurt.

I don't remember exactly when we bought this to try, but it was months ago. We had been pretty intrigued by it when I first started seeing the pictures on Instagram, but after we tried it, we wanted nothing to do with it ever again. We thought it was pretty bad. There was some taste that might have been peanut butter, there was a hint of sweetness, but mostly it just had some artificial, not very pleasant flavor. I think I had one spoonful and poor A had to eat the rest of it instead of just his half. He likes PB&J more than I do, but even he thought it was terrible. That's why I was pretty surprised to see this still on the shelf. I knew we weren't the only ones who disliked it after reading some other negative comments online about it after we tried it, but apparently there's enough people out there who like it since it hasn't been discontinued. We disliked it so much that I even considered going back to the store for a refund, but since we ate it all, just decided instead to never buy it again. Someone must like it though. I wish I could understand why!

Buy Again? In case you skipped the rest of the post and just want the quick answer, no, never again.

Shopping in Portland

Our love of visiting grocery stores when traveling isn't just an international thing. Even when we don't leave the country, we still try to find time to stop and browse. Of course, on our Portland trip, we did more grocery shopping than usual because it was Thanksgiving week and we were tagging along with A's mom to pick up provisions for the week, but we were happy to go often and try as many stores as possible.

We have Costco at home, but every Costco is a little different, carrying local and market-specific products. One thing we noticed at the Portland Costco we visited was that there was a really extensive beer collection. That isn't really surprising since it's Portland, one of the country's craft beer capitals, and there were a lot of local brews there.

We picked up a case of Stone IPA for the week. Stone isn't a local Portland beer, but A was so excited to see a case full of it that we had to get it. We get some Stone beer at our local Costco now, but we didn't have any back then and we still don't have this sampler pack.

One thing that Costco carries on the West Coast but we've never seen east of the Mississippi (and don't know why!) is the giant bag of Hi-Chew. It's a great deal for the size and I really wish we could get it here. It's a 17-18 ounce bag with grape, strawberry, mango, and green apple candies. We love Hi-Chew candy and it's now become a thing on our West Coast trips that we go to stock up (kind of like the Hawaiian pilgrimage to Trader Joe's for cookie butter?).

Other than Costco, every grocery store we visited was one we couldn't go to at home. There was New Seasons Market, which seemed similar to Whole Foods, and had the most extensive "bulk bin" section I had ever seen. (We may have gotten some pine nuts to bring home since the price was so much better.) We went to QFC, which was more of a standard grocery store (more on QFC in the next post). The one we really enjoyed though was Fred Meyer, where we went multiple times. The prices at Fred Meyer often beat all the rest, the products looked great, and they didn't just carry food. They had a whole liquor shop and clothes and everything else you could want. It was like a Target with a full and better grocery store. We loved shopping and looking to see what was different from home.

Unlike the dairy sections at grocery stores at home, the ones in the Portland area were often overrun with Tillamook products. (That's a good thing.) We've known about and been fans of Tillamook since we learned about their Oregon roots and tried their cheese years ago (including on one of our flights).

We decided to pick up lots of yogurt for the week, so we tried a whole bunch of Tillamook flavors. As a general matter, the quality of the yogurt was good. The fruit flavors for the most part tasted natural, unlike some of those artificially sweet yogurt brands out there.

Although we did get some classic flavors like peach and lime, we tried to concentrate on flavors that really reflected Oregon. We picked up Oregon strawberry, mountain huckleberry, and marionberry (a blackberry that was developed in Oregon). Out of all the flavors we tried, the one we liked best was the marionberry.

One thing the Portland area grocery stores definitely did better than most of our regular stores is samples. There were tons of samples everywhere! Sometimes they would just leave fruit around, like all of these peeled Clementine slices.

Other times they gave out full cups of ice cream! Try finding that here.

We also had cookies, cheese, pumpkin bread, and more. Fred Meyer even had wine tastings (although we didn't partake). We love grocery shopping as it is, but all the free tasty treats made it such an enjoyable experience. I think even people who hate grocery shopping would like such a comfortable and welcoming environment. Look at how well the samples do at Costco.

We really had a fun time visiting the grocery stores out in the Portland area. We do most of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods (and sometimes Fairway), since most of the "standard" grocery stores out here are downright terrible. We wish we had options like this at home. The stores we visited were so spacious. The aisles were so large, the stores weren't crowded, and you could just shop at a leisurely pace without feeling rushed like you do at stores here in the city. We'd have so much variety with these stores if we had them at home and could get some great stuff!

Pinkcard

Have you signed up for pinkcard, the loyalty program at Pinkberry? If not, I highly recommend it.

Even if you don't go to Pinkberry that often, joining the program means a free small yogurt with toppings on your birthday. And since that size yogurt is now running over $6 (with tax) here in NYC, that free treat is definitely worth it.

I used my birthday reward today for a small cookies and cream yogurt with strawberries, mochi and cookies and cream (crumbled oreos) toppings. I loved the cookies and cream yogurt. It tasted exactly like the crumbled cookies but in yogurt form. They really nailed that flavor. I don't know if it's seasonal but it's now one of my favorites. A delightful treat for a winter day!

Yogurtland

We finally have Yogurtland in New York!

Technically we already got two last year - one on the Upper East Side and one in Park Slope - but we never heard that they opened those and didn't know Yogurtland had made it here until we stumbled upon it during our walk today. New York is a bit overrun with yogurt shops, but we have always wanted Yogurtland (ever since we went in LA a few years ago) and now we finally have one! And it's not that long of a walk from our place either.

When we got there, there were free samples outside and then they offered us multiple little sample cups to try the other flavors. Between all the sample cups, we tried NY cheesecake, red velvet cake, taro, double cookies and cream, toasted coconut, Mexican chocolate, black sesame vanilla and strawberry lemonade sorbet. So many delicious flavors!

We went with the black sesame vanilla, part of the limited edition Flavor Quest (world flavors) series, and topped it with strawberries, lychee and mochi. If you've never been to Yogurtland, they charge by weight, so you can add as many flavors and toppings as you want.

We are so happy that Yogurtland is now close by. Their yogurt flavors just taste better than the other yogurt places, and the atmosphere has a very similar vibe to being back in California. We can't wait to go back!

The new Yogurtland is at 358 Seventh Avenue (between 29th and 30th Streets). Very close to Penn Station!

Key Lime Light & Fit

We did a lot of grocery shopping this weekend and one thing we stocked up on was yogurt. I don't usually get Dannon Light & Fit, but it was on sale (50 cents each), so I picked up two to try. This morning I decided to test out the key lime one.

The yogurt was a pale green shade when I opened it. I hoped that it would be a light citrus flavor and that it would taste like real lime, kind of like the way the Yoplait apple yogurt we tried in Cancun tasted like biting into a green apple.

It did taste like lime, but sadly it was an artificial lime flavor. It was like they were going for key lime pie instead. It was just too unnaturally sweet (kind of like how I felt after trying the Yoplait "dessert" yogurt line). Why can't we get a real fruit flavor instead of all of this artifically sweet stuff?