Kids love fro-yo. They also love devouring candy and drawing on walls. But without any children at my disposal, I decided the best way to evaluate iYO Cafe, a self-serve yogurt and waffle shop, would be to rally some girlfriends and smoke a fat joint before heading over.We arrived freshly baked at 10 pm on a weeknight and found the Davis Square storefront bustling. A mild bout of social anxiety faded as we realized the crowd was full of twentysomethings like ourselves. I made a beeline for the waffle station, poured a cup of batter, and dumped it into a flippable machine while avoiding eye contact with a very helpful attendant.
She told me one-fourth of a waffle fits perfectly inside one of their cups, so I let my enlightened appetite attempt the elusive breakfast-dessert hybrid. A built-in timer counted down while my waffle cooked and I contemplated 12 flavors of fro-yo.
I wound up burying my waffle in blueberry-tart and triple-chocolate yogurts, liquid marshmallow sauce, whipped cream, crushed Oreos, and tapioca pearls. (There are a couple of yards of counter space allotted for dry toppings alone.)
Then came the weigh-and-pay line, which wracked my nerves until I noticed those ahead of me had loaded their cups even fuller than the one I'd stuffed to the rim. Not one of them rang up over $6, and I clocked in at an astonishing $4.83. At 49 cents per ounce, it's safe to indulge.After taste-testing our creations, we took shots of Barrington Coffee espresso and headed for the back room equipped with a giant chalkboard. We added flamingos and flower doodles to a preexisting mural of rainbows, faces, and silly tags like "I [heart] Irish dance." Only one drawing appeared to be made by a child — I'm pretty sure the rest was high art.
» ARIELSHEARER@GMAIL.COM :: @ARIELSHEARER
FIND IT: 234 Elm St, Somerville | 617.764.5295 or | iyocafe.com | Mon–Fri, 7 am to 11 pm; Sat, 8 am to 11:30 pm; Sun, 8 am to 10 pm
Related:
Review: Being Flynn, Review: Headhunters, Review: Double Trouble, More 
- Review: Being Flynn
Adaptations are always difficult to pull off, but this one had the extra baggage of being based on a lyrical book with chapter titles like "The Piss of God," and a tendency to jump back and forth through time as Flynn unpacks his life story.
- Review: Headhunters
Roger (Aksel Hennie) is an Oslo yuppie with a gorgeous, blonde wife, a top-drawer job as a corporate headhunter, and a lucrative side employment stealing fancy paintings.
- Review: Double Trouble
David Chang's inept martial arts comedy confirms the genius of Jackie Chan.
- Review: Unforgivable
Lucky for André Téchiné that he's so slick with exposition.
- Review: Margaret
Kenneth Lonergan offers no resolutions in this complex and moving parable, unless it's the observation that the only resolutions in life are in art.
- Brian Zink, Marisa Martino, and Robin Mandel
Zink's new show, "Assembled" at Howard Yezerski Gallery (460 Harrison Ave, Boston, through February 7), features handsome, hard-edged abstractions assembled from mod, jitterbugging patterns of flat Plexiglass tiles.
- Review: Crazy Horse
In La Danse — The Paris Opera Ballet , Frederick Wiseman looked behind the scenes at a revered dance institution. In his new documentary he examines a dance institution of a different sort, the cabaret bar of the title, a Parisian pop-cultural icon and tourist mecca dedicated to artistically ambitious "nude chic" dancing.
- Review: Trishna
If nothing else, Michael Winterbottom's updating of Tess of the D'Urbervilles to present-day India proves that Thomas Hardy will depress you no matter what the setting.
- Review: The Day He Arrives
"Stop copying me!" says Seong-jun (Yu Jun-sang), the has-been filmmaker at the center of the 12th cinematic Mobius strip from Hong Sang-soo.
- Review: Ice Age: Continental Drift
Perhaps you've seen "Scrat's Continental Crack-Up," the animated short that debuted theatrically a year and a half ago featuring the sabre-toothed squirrel causing a prehistoric tectonic cataclysm as a result of his pursuit of an elusive acorn.
- Review: Take This Waltz
Margot (Michelle Williams), who makes ends meet grinding out PR pamphlets, wants to be happy with her husband Lou (Seth Rogen), a cookbook writer. However, like many Seth Rogen characters, Lou's more a grab-assing buddy than a lover.
- Less
Topics:
On The Cheap
, Boston, activities, Coffee, More
, Boston, activities, Coffee, Somerville, review, food, about, KIDS, Art, Shop, Less
