16 Handles

Remember when Tasti D was the king of low-calorie soft-serve? No more. In the past eighteen months, frozen yogurt shops have sprouted all across Manhattan, and the boom shows no signs of slowing. Last month yet another yogurt place, 16 Handles, opened up on Second Avenue not far from the new Pinkberry on St. Mark’s Place, (with a buy-one-get-one-free offer for August). It seemed like overkill, but I was hopeful that something could intervene between me and Pinkberry.

I mean, not long ago I scoffed at the lines winding out of each newly-opened Pinkberry, packed with people willing to shell out $6 for a cup of sleekly-packaged swirly low-cal dessert that no one was sure was really yogurt, or a batch of chemicals. But then Pinkberry got its frosty fangs in me. The concoction is creamy, tart, and sweet at first taste, then the flavor gently fades, leaving you face-down in your cup, chasing that initial tang all the way to the bottom. Topped with enough supersized, abnormally-perfect raspberries and blackberries to make it acceptably healthy, each costly cup of this embarrassingly compelling stuff drove me from the bright shop into the shadows, snacking and hating myself at the same time.

I tried Red Mango, an Asian import which has recently landed on 14th street and claims the Pinkberry entreprenuers swiped its yogurt concept; it wasn’t the same. I missed that tarty zing–that sugary something–that ineffable Pinkberryness…

16 Handles‘ plain tart yogurt hits the nail on the head. The whole place is self serve, and offers 16 rotating flavors (chocolate, raspberry tart, and mango sorbet stood out to me), and a salad-bar sized selection of toppings from fresh fruit to yogurt chips, granola, ground-up butterfingers, and long-forgotten breakfast cereals like cinnamon toast crunch. I liked being able to control how much of everything went into my cup and pay by weight–I ended up shelling out $4.09 for my strawberry-and-mango-studded creation instead of the requisite $6.23 for the Pinkberry three-topping medium. But be sure to exercise a little self-control, or it could get expensive.

I have one critique–the little wooden eco-spoons were awful. Fro-yo shouldn’t involve a risk of tongue splinters.

16 Handles 153 Second Ave. between 9th and 10th Street