It's amazing!

No, it's overrated!

They should call it Crackberry!

No, they should call it Stinkberry!

Never heard of Pinkberry? Join the club.

[More:]

For those of you a.) not living in LA and b.) not a food-obsessed New Yorker, let me fill you in on the details. Here's Wikipedia's take on Pinkberry:

Pinkberry is a chain of frozen yogurt stores primarily located in Los Angeles, California.

The company was founded in January of 2005 by Hyekyung "Shelly" Hwang. There are currently eleven Pinkberry locations in the Los Angeles area and three in New York City with plans for further expansion. The tart, frozen yogurt has a groupie like following who refer to it as "Crackberry". The company acknowledges its cult-like following by maintaining a "groupie corner" on its website. Some attribute the company's success to its appealing combination of a low-calorie dessert in a Philippe Starck and Le Klimt designer environment. The company's success has led to complaints of congestion and littering near its stores and the launching of several imitators. Pinkberry sells items other than just frozen yogurt such as Green Tea, which uses traditional Japanese Green Tea powder, the Shaved Ice menu and smoothies. Toppings range from fruit to cereal.

To recap, everyone's collective panties are in a bunch over frozen yogurt — fat-free frozen yogurt. Wasn't this an episode of Seinfeld like, fifteen years ago?

Anyway, when my friend Eun-Duk said she wanted to try the one on 32nd Street, I gladly took her up on the offer.

Even before I got up to the cash register, I was pretty sure Ms. Hwang was a genius; if you're going to queue up for 20 minutes, it's nice to be surrounded by stylish furniture. The line, although long, moves pretty fast. After all, the menu is just frozen yogurt (original or green tea), shaved ice, and smoothies. That's it. You want water? Bring it with you or give up your place in line.

I finally reached the cash register and started to place my order.

"I'll take a small original with mango, kiwi, and —"

"It's actually a better deal if you order a medium with three toppings," the cashier interrupted in a this-is-the-537th-time-I've-said-this-today tone.

I hesitated, but I didn't want to hold up the long line behind me, so I quickly conceded and handed over my money. I waited another couple minutes and got my medium original with three toppings.

As you can see, the medium is fairly big, enough for two people to share. I picked up a spoon and dug in.

My first thought: It's... different.

We all tried to describe what, exactly, the yogurt tastes like. Eun-Duk thought it tasted like Japanese yogurt drinks while I thought of something similar: yogurt-flavored Hi-Chew candy. For lack of a better adjective, it's very yogurty. It's much like a slightly sweet, frozen, Greek yogurt, creamy without being fatty, with a very lactic, almost sour, tang. The fruit is extremely fresh, never frozen, and unsweetened.

My second thought: Did I seriously just pay six bucks for this?

For six bucks (eight ounces of yogurt plus three toppings), I expected to swoon on the spot. The more I ate, the more the flavor grew on me, but by the time our cups were empty, none of us were really convinced.

About an hour or two later, Eun-Duk said something like she was thinking that maybe Pinkberry was pretty good after all, but my kid was in the middle of a nervous breakdown over a toy, so I was a little distracted, and I just kind of laughed off her Pinkberry craving. My husband and I walked Eun-Duk to the subway and then kept walking until our kid passed out from toy-denial grief. We stopped in to get a cup of coffee on our way to the grocery store, and as I was sitting there in a post-traumatic parenting daze, it suddenly struck me: I really wanted another Pinkberry.

This is evidently a common Pinkberry phenomenon. As I was writing this, I called my husband in from the kitchen to read him two excerpts from articles about Pinkberry in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, respectively:

Leslie Grossman, an actress, described it like this: "The first time you try it, you're like -- 'Eh,' and then you're like, 'Did I eat that whole thing?' And then the next day you are like, 'I could really go for a Pinkberry right now.' "

[David Kim] gets his yogurt fix (small plain with mochi) once a week. “O.K., twice,” Mr. Kim said. “If I could, I would get it three times. It doesn’t immediately grab you, but there is something about the flavor that draws you in, and each time you go back you taste something a little bit different. The next thing you know, it’s like crack.”

But why? How can a food you find somewhat unappetizing the first time you eat it become something you want to eat again immediately?

There can be only one answer to this question: I must go back to Pinkberry and find out, like, oh, right now.

For more from me (right after I come back from Pinkberry because I am seriously putting my shoes on right now to go)...