TCBY

WHY?!?!

I mean, seriously, what is this?

So, it's not cheap. A "small" is $3.65 with tax, and is pretty big, but then again, you can pay just $1.75 more (okay, that is 45% more...) and get a small from Marble Slab, and be much, much happier.

Anyhow, it's not cheap.

It doesn't taste like anything. The cup we shared just now (D. was going to get his own cup, but I convinced him to share mine) is "blueberry cheesecake" flavour. It's an unappetizing purple-grey colour, and tastes like fake vanilla, with a funny set of other weird fruity flavours. The TCBY ingredient page doesn't include that flavour, but does include other ones that are "fruit"-flavoured with no fruit in them.

The texture is terrible. There's this chalkiness and also graininess (basically, this is the consequence of their not being enough fat in it, and the "guar gum, carrageenan, locust bean gum, xanthan gum" that are in the ingredients not being enough to make up for it.

[Oh, today's random aside: did you know that guar gum has gotten much more expensive because of hydraulic fracking? Yeah. Mostly, its price has become much more volatile, but is also much higher than just a couple years ago.]

Really, I shouldn't be thinking of hydraulic fracking while I'm eating "fro-yo". But I guess that's better than thinking about how I used to go to fro-yo places in the '80s when I was in high school. Yeah.

I had: a "small" blueberry cheesecake cup.
I paid: $3.65 including tax
Verdict:
Speed: Well, it was in my hands mere seconds after I ordered it, thanks to the soft-serv machine.
Quality: If this is the best fake ice cream that chemistry can produce, real ice cream has nothing to worry about.
Value: Terrible. There are two different places within 400' of this store that sell real ice cream for not too much different price, and their ingredient prices are going to be much higher since they use things like butterfat in their mix. And they're actually tasty, unlike this junk.
Would go back: Oh, definitely. I think I need to get a frequent buyer card. Um, no.