Red Mango frozen yoghurt shops are becoming all the rage in Bangkok, Thailand. Popping up at many Bangkok malls and in stand-alone shops, Red Mango yoghurt shops are a favorite with Thais and westerners due to their delicious offerings that are non-fat, low-calorie and healthy. If you, like me, hate to miss dessert, but don’t want all the calories that come with it, try Red Mango. You get the ‘sugar’ kick without the sugar or the calories.
What is Red Mango? – Red Mango is a chain of South Korean frozen yoghurt shops that serve up frozen yoghurt drinks, frozen yoghurt ‘ice cream’, shaved ice desserts and more. They arrived in Bangkok, Thailand in 2007 and now are all over the city. Their focus is to provide a delicious dessert or fruit smoothie without all the calories and fat often associated with them.
What Does Red Mango Serve and How Does it Taste? – At Red Mango in Bangkok, you can choose non-fat yoghurt in three flavors (vanilla, strawberry or green tea) and top it with one of 20 or more fruit , nuts and sauce toppings. They also serve shaved ice desserts, made with ice, syrup and topped with fruit, and lots of fruit smoothie style drinks. As Thais love jelly, Red Mango has even added non-fat, non-sugar jelly desserts if you’re not in a frozen yoghurt mood.
What makes the products so delicious at Red Mango though is the fact that no sugar or junk is added. In fact, unlike at many frozen yoghurt places in America where it might be non-fat but it’s loaded with sugar, Red Mango uses only plain non-fat yoghurt with flavorings added. That means, when you taste the vanilla frozen yoghurt ice cream, you can actually taste the yoghurt with a very subtle sweetness coming from the vanilla.
Plus, as it’s actually yoghurt and not something loaded with sugar and masquerading as such, it also has the live cultures that are in regular yoghurts – healthy enzymes for your digestion and stomach health.
Last night, a friend and I shared a large vanilla yoghurt topped with fresh mango, kiwi and longan. The minute you take the first taste of the yoghurt, the sheer freshness of it, the slight ‘bite’ of yoghurt followed by the vanilla is phenomenal. Then, add the fresh mango, kiwi and longan and, quite frankly, it’s sheer heaven. In fact, we loved it so much, we ordered a smaller second one, this time with strawberry yoghurt and fresh strawberries. Yum.
Prices at Red Mango – The yoghurt shop is wonderful for dessert as it’s not expensive at all. For a Super Small sized yoghurt, which is plenty for one person, you’ll pay 49 baht ($1.65) plus 10 baht (33 cents) for each topping. For the size we ordered, along with all the toppings, we paid approximately $4, but it was a huge amount of yoghurt, more than enough for two people, and with three fruit toppings. They also have sundae specials, where, if you order a specific sundae and toppings, you get a cheaper deal. Fruit smoothies too start at 59 baht for a small size ($2).
Locations – My favorite Red Mango is at Central World Plaza but there are many dotted around Bangkok. Esplanade, Siam Center and Mahboonkrong (MBK) malls also have them with more popping up ever few months.
