Sunday, September 28, 2008

Financial District Fro-yo with SoGreen

My frozen yogurt taste test is slow going. Some days I’ll hit a great new find like my visit to Tuttimelon that gets me inspired to try more. Then I try places like SoGreen that makes me question my starting this whole fro-yo eating in the first place. But maybe I’m giving away too much? Please read on.

SoGreen is at the ground level of the Crocker Galleria in San Francisco’s Financial District. The name and look give it this environmentally conscious approach to frozen yogurt, but really I can’t get the fact that I keep name-associating it with the classic movie, Soylent Green. (Anybody watch that with Charleton Heston? Anyone?)

Name notwithstanding, SoGreen started in San Francisco and really pushes their non-fat, natural ingredients on its Web site and at the store. It sells original (that’s the tart one), green tea and one seasonal fruit flavor. (It was strawberry the time I was there.)

Their prices for the original is $2.95 (small), $3.95 (medium) and $5.75 (large) and for the special flavors it’s $3.50 (small), $4.50 (medium) and $6.25 (large). They offer the typical selections of fruit toppings and dried ingredients. They also sell smoothies and what they call “blasts.”

I went with my typical taste-test fro-yo, which is the small cup of original yogurt topped with strawberries. The fresh strawberries were diced oddly small, unlike other places where much of the strawberries were just halved to retain more of its natural bulk.

The fro-yo itself was thick, almost like a malt. As it melted, it got a bit more liquid and smoother, but it was quite thick to begin with so it took awhile to reach that more creamy consistency. The flavor itself was OK, a bit tart but not overly tart.

I can’t say I found SoGreen’s fro-yo to be very refreshing. It was good, but the flavor didn’t feel surprising on my tongue. It just tasted predictable. Plus, the service was friendly but slightly empty. They didn’t seem to really know a lot of answers to questions I had.

SoGreen is so-so.

Single Guy's Fro-yo Rankings:

1. Red Mango, Palo Alto
2. Pinkberry, Southern California
3. Tuttimelon, San Francisco
4. YoCup, San Francisco
5. Fraiche, Palo Alto
6. Icebee, San Francisco
7. Jubili, San Francisco
8. SoGreen, San Francisco
9. Yogurt Harmony, Berkeley
10. Yogen Früz, San Francisco

SoGreen, 50 Post St. (Crocker Galleria), lower level. Open weekdays, 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Saturday, noon–5 p.m., closed Sunday. www.sogreenyogurt.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I went here on opening day but the line was so long I tried it the next day. It looks empty now, in your picture. This was my first experience with frozen yogurt. I like the chai smoothie. I've been meaning to try Fraiche and Red Mango. Now that you've rated Red Mango the highest, I'm leaning towards trying Red Mango first.

Single Guy Ben said...

Yes, definitely try Red Mango. And let me know what you think!

BTW, I visited SoGreen after work on a weekday. It was around 5:30 p.m.