For better or worse, we looked at the nutrition values of two of LAist's favorite food groups: Oreos and ice cream. / Photo by mihoda via flickr. As we learned earlier, July is National Ice Cream Month, a legacy left to us by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. According to the International Ice Cream Association, “He recognized ice cream as a fun and nutritious food that is enjoyed by a full 90% of the......

Total cost: 5 bucks and some change | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist In the earlier days of the frozen yogurt craze, Yogurtland sprung up in Fullerton in February 2006. It was a success and so more stores opened in Hollywood, Long Beach, Little Tokyo, Sherman Oaks and many other Southern California locations and one in Cupertino up north. They even opened a location in Greenwich Village in New York City with plans for Vegas,......

Any Angeleno worth their salt knows this city can be both bright and happy or sinister and dark by quick turns or subtle steps or shameless spirals. There is much to celebrate about LA and much to shy away from - which makes it the ideal city-as-character in many a writer's novel. A few new books are out that feature LA and they're on our radar to check out this month. Latinos in Lotusland: An......

Pinkberry Pinkberry, the most hated and revered fro-yo chain. Are you pinkberry or are you stinkberry? Are you good for me or bad? There's been so much Pinkberry news lately, it's tough to keep track of it all. Here's the timeline of events:Pinkberry becomes wildly popular - so popular, many begin to wonder about its oddly addictive qualities and the big question finally gets asked: just what the hell is this I'm eating?Pinkberry is slapped......

Pinkberry, CeFiore, Red Mango, Lime Light, etc., etc., etc., have nothing on Menchie's Frozen Yogurt in Valley Village off Laurel Canyon between Magnolia and Chandler. At Menchie's, there's not just two flavors, there's ten. At Menchie's, you don't get served, you serve yourself. At Menchie's, there's not just a handful of toppings, there's more than thirty-five. Ranging from chocolate to cake batter to fruit flavors, the Valley yogurt shop let's you serve yourself, pay by......

Ah, another glorious, status conscious, conspicuously consuming day. I've spent such a long time typing away on my Macbook Air, and now I'm just about ready to drive home to Beechwood Canyon where I'll spend the evening watching Bravo. Hotcha! But hmmm, now that I think about it, maybe a stop at Pinkberry for some deliciously monotonous icy sludge would add to the perfection of the day. No, wait! I've got it! I'll cap things......

I first heard about Shaquille O'Neal in middle school. Back then, he was more of a playground rumor than a superstar. The first kid to learn about him tried to tell the rest of us. 7'1"? Impossible. 375 pounds? Nah. Size 23 shoe? Are you sure that's not his jersey number? Clearly, he was telling tales. There was some giggling, name calling, and a serious demotion in the lunch seating hierarchy. Nobody could be that......

Photograph of memorial outside Heath Ledger's NYC apartment Gothamist learned that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment, cause of death unknown so far (but apparently the masseuse who found him called Mary-Kate Olsen before 911).Bostonist considered sending a link about the Super Bowl, but damn! The New Kids are reuniting!Although Sylvester Stallone is a native of New York City, his Rocky character lets many Philadelphians consider him a native son......

DineLA's Restaurant Week officially starts today! LAist was there for the kickoff event hosted by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Neal Fraser at Grace. LAist's Callie Miller let us in on her dirty little secret this week: she loves Pinkberry. GIANT KILLER CUPCAKE!!!! Okay, so it's not exactly 50 feet tall, but jumbo cupcakes from French pâtisserie La Provence in Beverly Hills still look massively good to us. Fresh & Easy has finally opened in......

Mayor Villaraigosa serves the city in "dineLA Restaurant Week's Big Kickoff" / Photo by Elise Thompson We always encourage you to press that little recommend button at the bottom right hand corner of every post if you enjoyed it. For one, it tells us what you want more of here at LAist. So here's this week's three most recommended and commented posts, as recommended and talked up by you: Most Recommended What is That......

Photo by Here in Van Nuys via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr The chief of the Environmental Protection Agency is testifying to a Congress panel that he was not pressured into shutting down California's attempts to create its own global-warming laws: "It was Johnson's first appearance on Capitol Hill since he acted last month, and he drew the ire of not only Boxer, his usual critic, but other Democratic senators whose states......

I should hate Pinkberry for a million different reasons: what it does to neighborhoods, the mom & pops it shuts down in its wake, its fake-yogurty ingredients that are likely very, very bad for me and its off-putting, sour flavor that foodies abhor and I, strangely, adore. I know and I agree and I held out as long as I could....

An opinion piece in today's LA Times raises the issue of what seems to be the rampant Pinkberry-fication of many of our local neighborhoods, using recent food and retail closings and openings in the popular Larchmont Village as an example of how major-chain development affects the unique vibe of a given area. Larchmont Village, which is the bustling strip of shops located on Larchmont Boulevard between Beverly Boulevard and 1st Street, is starting to......

The LA Weekly's Jonathan Gold names his "Top Ten Dishes of 2007" and curious palates all over the Southland take note. His picks include the porcetta at Brentwood's Vicenti (a rotisserie-cooked piece of pork where the "loin and belly are wrapped into a spiral, seasoned with fennel, and spit-roasted to a crackling, licorice-y succulence"), Donut Man's Strawberry Donut, and My Taco's Barbacoa (lamb), which we fell in love with too, when we checked out Garvanza.......

A suspected drunk driver brough his Sunday to a crashing conclusion when he led officers on a chase from Santa Ana to Glendale late last night. The PIT maneuver was employed on the Colorado Street offramp of the 5 North to bring things to a halt. Kids, don't go spiking Santa's milk tonight with rum; we don't want the cops chasing any reindeer-led sleighs! The LA Times chimes in with their thoughts today on the......

Farm Boy Palms (probably also known as Farm Boy Culver City) is finally open. With a pretty substantial workload, I haven't had time to go there a lot, but I did manage to take some pictures. They have loads of fruits and vegetables, all described on their handwritten cards as "sweet and fresh." The sushi looks about on par with Ralphs, and they have fruit flavored yogurts with all the Pinkberry trimmings.......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

For 36 years, The Wiener Factory has been serving hot dogs out of their Sherman Oaks stand to loyal and new customers alike. Good for hot dog lovers, bad for residents craving Pinkberry:Officials with Pinkberry, a nonfat frozen-yogurt chain, were expected to tell a Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council panel Monday night that they wanted to raze the small hot-dog restaurant and build another Pinkberry store. "Historically, many things come and go. But we have......

Some are considering it "if you can't beat em - invest in em", but any good judge of fads know that the worst thing that Starbucks could have ever done to Pinkberry is fork over $27.5 million to the local frozen yogurt chain so they can continue to multiply at a rapid pace. Why would Starbucks want people eating a quasi-yogurt treat next summer at Pberry instead of slurping down a freshly made Frappuchino at......

Sure, all over the country the kids are back in school, the temperatures are beginning to dip down, and Starbucks has begun to shill its autumnal fare, but here in Sunny So Cal we are still sweating out our eternal summer, gorging on frozen dairy product treats of often questionable origin. Try as we might, the world of fro-yo is too mighty to ignore, which is why we feel compelled to bring you This Week......

No! This just can't be happening! I scrupulously avoid reading anything published by the LA County Department of Health, because otherwise I would never be able to eat anywhere ever again. Unfortunately, my friend Donna just alerted me to the fact that Doughboy's, provider of our red velvet cake fix, made the Health Department's Food Facility Closure List for the period 05/31/2007 through 08/31/2007. Due to vermin infestation. Quelle horreur ! In reality, I......

The unwritten rules for laundromats built before 1987 are as following: A. A half dozen washers or dryers must have Out of Order signs B. A crazy looking person who doesn't appear to be doing laundry at all must stare randomly at people. C. A musty classic arcade game such as Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga sit in the corner for entertainment. Now, I'm not a slack-jawed obsessive classic arcade gamer by any means but I......

1. Go running on Los Feliz Blvd in the evenings, to get the anger out. (It's well-lit, fairly level, and a little exhilarating with all the cars rushing by. Just mind the sprinklers at 8.) 2. Hang out in Studio City or Burbank, etc. There's something oddly cheerful and reliable about that area. 3. Make frequent, unapologetic Pinkberry and gelato trips. 4. Go to the Griffith Observatory and see the Planetarium. That is some uplifting......

My family spends so much time at the Farmers Market that many of the restaurant owners know my kids by name. I even married a man who grew up in the neighborhood and spent much of his childhood exploring the rows of fruit stands, butchers, and food from around the world. Though the market has added some chains like Starbucks and the soon to open Pinkberry, the vintage charm of old LA still prevails. The......

Over on the Eastside, and in many other Latino enclaves, summer has been synonymous with the ringing bells of those mobile vendors hawking paletas, fruity iced wonders in many vibrant colors and flavors. While the Westsiders rage with their yogurt wars, it seems that the LA Times has finally discovered these icy treats that us in the barrios have been enjoying for decades. Paletas come in many different flavors, from coconut and strawberry for......

A few weeks ago, a YouTube video popped up called "Car Bomb In West Los Angeles" in which it appears that some sort of crane-like robot (an extra Transformer that didn't quite make Michael Bay's cut?) pulls an unidentified object out of the trunk of a car. At about the four minute mark in the video, the robot sets the thing off to the side of a building, and a loud noise is heard,......

Gee, I wonder what tipped them off: California transportation officials will immediately inspect 69 of the state's most vulnerable steel-deck bridges. And the frozen yogurt wars rage on... A man, believed to be a property caretaker, was fatally mauled by a dog on Ving Rhames' property. How desperate can you get? Fox News is offering Republicans $15 to attend an upcoming taping of the "Half Hour News Hour" - a right-wing (and shoddy) version......

Earlier this summer, LAist wrote about the dangerous intersection between Trader Joe's and Gelson's in Silver Lake. After numerous accidents involving pedestrians including the tragic death of Silver Lake resident Bill Winguard, progress to make the area safer is apparently underway with the installation of a new traffic signal. We spotted the stoplights in place at the Hyperion Blvd. and Monon St. crosswalk, but they had not been activated yet. The project was slated......

July was a bittersweet month for LAist. We had a record-breaking month with nearly a million visitors coming to our humble site. Little did we know that some of the guests were big wigs from the venerable Los Angeles Times who left with two of our editors. Indeed, several weeks ago our Film Editor Elina Shatkin was snapped up from our midsts to become Content Producer for CalendarLive at LATimes.com, and yesterday our Sports......

Photo via Midnight Movies' website I managed to make it to the very last Also I Like To Rock event at the Hammer Museum last night in Westwood. But my camera died when we got there. Despite rumors that there would be a massive line to get in and no parking, showing up at 7:30 yielded a nice un-metered spot on Wilshire about a block away, and plenty of time to go to an......