Brunch at Yobot

Couple of weeks ago, I went to a street food fair in Helsinki, called Streat Helsinki. Clever, huh? I’m going to write about that in another post but while I was there, queueing for some meze, I got talking with a lady who turned out to be an owner of a frozen yogurt place in Helsinki. She made such a good sales pitch that I decided to go there the very next day!

As per usual…That day I had some hard time getting out of bed and I arrived there just as their kitchen was about to close for brunch. Luckily, they still allowed me to order as I was starving (I hadn’t eaten anything for over 12 hours in anticipation). They offer two kinds of brunches, a sweet waffle buffet or a bagel brunch. I ordered the bagel but as soon as I sat down and saw everyone else’s delicious waffles, I regretted my choice. Instaregret! The next cool app at the market! Hah.

While I settled to wait for the food, I got a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and a cup of coffee and had some time to enjoy my surroundings. The place is very small. 3 small tables and one larger one in the middle but I didn’t get a claustrophobic feel about it. Later I found out that the smaller tables are there just for the brunch. Anyhoo, I didn’t have to wait long before I got this in front of me:

Salmon! Cream cheese! Melon! Greens! Natural yogurt! Muesli! I didn’t eat this, I inhaled everything. It was good! The delusional health conscious me decided to have ‘just’ the yogurt as dessert but it took total of five minutes to decide that I needed some of that frozen yogurt too…

Looks disgusting, doesn’t it? Just some Dominoes (cookie similar to Oreos), sprinkles and crushed nuts on the deliciousness that is frozen yogurt. Seriously, I could eat this by bucketfuls. TIP: Yobot is not too far (in fact just few minutes walk) from Töölön sairaala, Töölö hospital. If you have a friend there as a patient, a takeaway from Yobot would be a perfect present for the poor thing. I know I would have LOVED it while I was staying there for my op. Not that hospital food isn’t full of nutrients but somehow it just doesn’t hit the right spots…

The topping table and the price list. The way it works is that you get some fro-yo (see, I totally know the biz lingo) from the machine on the right and then you pile on the toppings. You pay according the weight. I know that foreigners balk at the price but Finnish taxation is insane and that’s actually pretty reasonable. But you don’t go there everyday so it’s okay to treat oneself every now and then, right?

Final verdict: I loves the place. When I was done eating and enjoying myself, I had a final chat with the owner (actually mother of the owners). The business was started by her American husband few years ago but who sadly passed away some time ago, leaving the business to the kids. When I got there, I thought that this doesn’t look like it was designed by a Finnish person and I was right. There’s something very upbeat about the place and the branding. I asked Jaana about the business side and how is it to run small business in Finland and she said that sometimes it can be very paperwork heavy and some things came as a surprise for them, such as having to apply for special permit to put some chairs outside during summer! We also managed to share some laughs about the culture shock you get when you return as a Finn back to Finland. Apparently we both were shocked that people are so white in here. And we all look the same!

Yobot has a Facebook and Twitter and they are located in Töölö, Runeberginkatu 54 A, 00260 Helsinki.

Thrifty Finn- The foodie