By Arianna Collado
Over the past summer, froyo shops in NYC have had an overwhelming surge of influencers coming in with their cameras rolling to find the tastiest treat in all of transplant-landia. I was the girl who watched all their videos instead of focusing at work, and consequently got influenced to try some myself. I’m now writing to share my findings not as an influencer, but as a chubby Dominican, born and raised New Yorker who happens to have an unhealthy attachment to all things dairy (seriously, I’ve eaten more pints of ice cream than a girl going through the worst breakup of her life). All this to say, I have nothing to gain from lying to you and everything to gain from you being able to say “Oh yeah, this girl Arianna put me on” as you’re out and about next summer.
The first shop I’ll be reviewing is Myka (the 6th Ave location) and let me paint the scene. My friend Neveah and I got all cute to take some photos on my new TikTok shop digital camera, only to be met with pouring rain once we exited the train. Regardless, there was a line DOWN THE BLOCK just for this froyo, so I automatically had my expectations set high. Once we reached the inside of the store, I had gotten a large cup of their tart flavor (the only flavor besides watermelon sorbet) topped with honey, toasted coconut flakes and baklava. I wanted some strawberries in place of baklava but they actually ran out of all the fruit toppings before I got there. Overall, it was okay. I enjoyed the quality of the honey they use and their tart flavor, but the baklava was way too crunchy for my liking, I mean, at some point it felt like I was eating sand with my froyo. Their overall topping selection wasn’t that great to me either, feeling more like an almond mom’s fantasy land and not something that could be featured in season 1, episode 20 of Liv and Maddie. They literally had a topping called antioxidant berry crumble (who’s getting that?!?!) and the amount of toppings you could get was limited to the size of your cup. Myka is definitely a place that you go once just to feel like you have a sophisticated palate and then never go out of your way for again.
The second shop I’ll be reviewing is Yogurt Land (the 86th and Lex location). Maybe I’m a little biased because I like things better when they’re free; my boyfriend paid, of course, but Yogurt Land blows Myka out of the water. It was absolutely worth waiting in that cramped and tiny hole in the wall they call a storefront. You order your froyo on a tablet (like the ones they have at McDonald’s if you have no idea what I’m talking about), which I personally enjoyed because I have a touch of social anxiety. Their tart flavor was also the superior of the two for me because it was actual Greek yogurt (I’m telling you I could taste Zeus in that cup). For toppings, I got honey, coconut, strawberry and mango; it was so refreshing. I will say that Myka has better honey and each topping at Yogurt Land was its own charge but in my personal opinion it was much more worth it (and they had more toppings overall). They even had more flavors of froyo and their large size ACTUALLY filled me up, whereas Myka’s left me wanting more. Now they even offer mango sticky rice froyo, which I will be devouring soon enough.
In conclusion, if you want to go to any one of the froyo spots saved in your favorites, go to Yogurt Land but at the end of the day, someone’s got to hold it down at Tasti-D-Lite.