Lobster Rolls and Frozen Yogurt!

On Tuesday (not Wednesday), Chris and I met up for lobster rolls and frozen yogurt (the best combination, EVER). We went to our favorite place, The Pearl Oyster Bar in the west village. The owner, Rebecca Charles, specializes in lobster rolls and clams (and all types of seafood, actually). She opened up the small restaurant back in 1997, back when no one in Manhattan had lobster rolls. Now, they’re everywhere!…but we still like the Pearl Oyster Bar the most. Look at how small the restaurant is:

There’s another room (the actual dining room), but there are only 20 some seats and they don’t accept reservations (a good thing, actually, because the lobster rolls are so good you’d probably never get a reservation!). We headed over around 7pm (prime dining time) and waited almost an hour for our seats (we walked around Bleecker Street and found a cute bench to sit on, so the wait wasn’t too bad).

So, you might be thinking, what exactly IS a lobster roll? According to Wikipedia, lobster rolls are sandwiches with around a pound of lobster (!), butter, mayonnaise, diced celery, all on a warm hot dog bun. Doesn’t that sound freaking fantastic?! It tastes EVEN BETTER! (All the ingredients are good for you, too). 🙂 Actually, there has been a shortage of lobsters this season, according to a NY Post online article. The Pearl Oyster bar actually raised their prices by $4, from $22 – $26 (they’re already pretty expensive, but if you think about it, you’re getting a freaking POUND of lobster!) Chris and I both ordered lobster rolls and they came out surprisingly fast (the waitress apologized for making us wait so long so she made our lobster rolls extra fast!). They also come out with shoestring fries and malt vinegar (their fries are the absolute BEST!). Are you ready to see the meal? I don’t know if you’re prepared for all this lobster roll goodness:

Oh.my.god. SO DELICIOUS! The lobster is so fresh and tender and I usually hate mayonnaise, but it just goes so well with the lobster! And on top of all that goodness, the buttery bun is perfectly toasted (the bun isn’t hard/crispy at all, just warm). How do you do it, Rebecca?! 🙂 Chris and I scarfed down our lobster rolls AND our shoestring fries and saw a lobster roll being WASTED by the guy next to us! He was out to dinner with his neighbor (the seats are so close in the restaurant that you can basically hear what everyone is saying), but he only ate HALF of his lobster roll and NONE of his shoestring fries! Chris and I whispered to each other that we were going to grab the lobster roll from his plate and just eat it if he didn’t since it should be illegal to waste something so freaking good. Luckily, he got the roll put in a doggie bag, BUT STILL! How can you only eat HALF a lobster roll at a time?!

After our amazing dinner, we headed to a *new* yogurt place (new to us). I read about it online (some food website) and one of the comments from a reader was that it tasted BETTER than Pinkberry. We had to try it out for ourselves, obviously. The place is called Yolato, and there’s one opening up right next to Grand Central in May (free yogurt when it opens, too!):

The place specializes in frozen yogurt that has more of a gelato taste, but they also have a machine that pumps out Pinkberry-styled frozen yogurt. (Doesn’t that picture look so appetizing?!) They have a lot of flavors everyday, which I sampled, but I wasn’t too impressed with the flavoring (the mango tasted especially chalky, similar to organic frozen mango)….but THAT didn’t matter because we were getting the soft serve, not the yolato. Here’s a sampling of some of their desserts:

Another great thing about yolato is that they also do more than just frozen desserts – they also make crepes and some coffees/other drinks. Maybe Pinkberry should think about expanding into other foods (not like they need MORE business…their lines are already out the door during the winter time, I can’t imagine what it’ll be like during the summer!). We ordered a large frozen yogurt with mangoes, blackberries, and strawberries (the small didn’t look big enough for the two of us). Why don’t they have a medium? When we go to Pinkberry, we always order a medium because the large is too big and the small is TINY. One thing I don’t like about the way they serve the yogurt is that they leave the center of the bowl HOLLOW. WTF! However, at Yolato, they make sure the ENTIRE BOWL IS FILLED WITH CREAMY GOODNESS. Look at how HUGE the large is:

Another thing that annoys me about Pinkberry is the amount of fruit they put on your order. You literally get ONE little spoonful (and if you get berries, I think it’s usually like 6-7 berries…NO JOKE!) Like, what’s the deal, Pinkberry? Yolato definitely puts spoonfuls (plural) of fruit on (maybe it’s because it’s in the east village and all the NYU kids work there and don’t care how much they put on?). Taste wise, I thought it was a bit creamier than Pinkberry and less tangy. Yolato is a mix between 40 carrots and Tasti-delite (in creaminess). Pinkberry uses more ice, which is somewhat more refreshing, but overall, I liked Yolato a lot. Pinkberry better STEP IT UP with toppings or else I’m going to Yolato more often!

This weekend is going to be jam PACKED with events! On Friday, I’m going to the Yankees vs. Red Sox game! My friend, John, said that he had an extra ticket and I *thought* he said for the Yankees vs. the WHITE Sox. Since I went to school in Illinois, I thought it would be fun to go to the game, but then he started saying how there’s a HUGE rivalry between the White Sox and the Yankees…I thought to myself, WOW…the Yankees hate ALL the Sox teams!! That’s SO mean! But after talking to John more, I realized he meant the RED Sox, not the White Sox. hehe 🙂 Since John’s from Boston, we’ll be cheering for the Red Sox (New York Yankee fans: please don’t kill me). On Saturday, I’m going to hang out with some friends that I haven’t seen in FOUR months (ahem, JEN) and then go out with Jason and some of his coworkers in the meatpacking district, and on Sunday, I’m going to the to see the cherry blossoms with Chris and then to Caroline’s to see Louis CK! What a weekend! I’ll be back with pictures on Monday!