After my first donut crawl, I promised myself that I would never repeat the foolishness and do another donut crawl.  However, I discovered that there are several great donut establishments in Los Angeles, and I couldn’t help but try them out.  Consider me a glutton for punishment, or at least, a glutton.

My first stop on the donut crawl was Donut King in Culver City, which was a 30 minute drive from the Valley, and I tried to time it so that my drive was post-rush-hour so that I didn’t have to be stuck in traffic and eagerly waiting for donuts.  The down side of timing your drive to be so late, you miss out on the freshest doughnuts.  I wanted to control for comparing the various donuts, so I ordered the same chocolate frosted donut in each place I went to.  However, in Donut King, I ordered the first chocolate donut I saw, which was actually a chocolate frosted cake donut.  If you’ve ever had a cake donut, you know that this donut crawl was already starting off behind the 8 ball (like ordering a Guiness on the first stop of a pub crawl).  If you haven’t, just imagine trying to eat 3 donuts, after the first donut is a cake!  Regardless, Donut King is a bit of a hole in the wall, which would be a great place to just grab a bunch of donuts then go to your work, but it’s a lousy place to sit and enjoy your donut.  The cake donut was really tasty, if slightly crumbly, and was one of a myriad varieties of donut that would impress even the most jaded donut consumer.  LA is lucky that they have such a great donut shop, and I’ll give it four cheese sandwiches.

Moving on, I stopped by Randy’s Donuts, famed donut stall known for the giant donut on the top of the stall.  This is the mecca for obese people and diabetics, at least for those who don’t prefer the Cheesecake Factory.

While Donut King was a place you wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting in, you literally cannot sit in Randy’s Donuts, as it is simply a shack of donut decadence.  I ordered the chocolate frosted donut, which I liked much more than the Donut King donut, even though the chocolate frosting tasted very carob-y.  The donut was light and fluffy, but at this point scarfing down the second donut in my car made me realize how alone I was.  Not just in the sense that I was doing a donut crawl by myself, but that I realized just how lonely dining alone has made me.  Donut crawls have a way of scouring even the darkest parts of your soul.  That, or I was hitting the trough of a sugar high.  Despite the depression inducing coma that the second donut gave me, I really like Randy’s donuts, and I’ll give it four cheese sandwiches also.

I met up with my friend Cuttino at the Grove, a giant shopping village/Farmer’s Market that you might recognize if you watch Extra!  Cuttino is a budding standup comedian, and was spending his time writing at the Borders there.  So, I would stop and visit and somehow never manage to see Mario Lopez!  Nevertheless, to cap off the donut crawl, I stopped by Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts, a stand in the Farmer’s Market.  I actually did not want a donut at this point, but I needed to get something at the Farmer’s Market to validate my parking.  At this point well beyond the apex of donut enjoyment, I must say that Bob’s donuts were actually pretty good.  Unfortunately, I decided to get the chocolate donut, because the cinnamon rolls looked amazing.  However, I have to compare apples to apples.  Bob’s donuts, another solid four cheese sandwiches.

I should point out that LA is fortunate to have a wide selection of delicious donut shops.  The reason I do so is that I have heard from several Boston celebrities on late night talk shows complain about how LA does not have a Dunkin’ Donuts!  This is the epitome of fake nostalgia.  People leave Boston, think fondly about their times at Dunkin’ Donuts, completely oblivious to the fact that it is really awful.  Well, it’s not Bruegger’s Bagels awful, but it’s not something that should be lamented that it is not there, when there are 3 outstanding local donut shops that are vastly superior.

Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts, 6333 W 3rd St # 450 Los Angeles, CA 90036-3109 (323) 933-8929

Donut King, 3970 Sepulveda Blvd # 2 Culver City, CA 90230-4633 (310) 313-3686

Randy’s Donuts, 805 West Manchester Boulevard Inglewood, CA 90301 (310) 645-4707

My last excursion to North Carolina was so great that I decided to return another year later to see how much has changed (not much) and see if I can try out the other great restaurants in the Chapel Hill area.  One place that looked really interesting that I didn’t have a chance to try was Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe (think Waffle House, if Waffle House was founded in 1832).  Ye Olde Waffle House is not that old, but it definitely acts as if it is.

How do you know you’re in a Southern Diner?  Look for folksy puns on the menu.  Only the pun on this menu is confusing as I think they mean “good food, no yolk”, replacing “joke” with “yolk” as they serve a lot of egg-based foods here.  But I guess they thought they weren’t going far enough with their pun, so they punned “yolk” and “yoke”, which is strange, as a yoke has more to do with oxen, and has a slight connotation of the slave-holding history of the South.  Or they could just not know how to spell yolk.  I tend to overthink these things.

I was so hungry I didn’t realize I should be taking pictures before eating (a rare feat for me), so you’ll have to forgive me for not getting the missing piece of waffle in this picture.  But, I’ll promise you that the missing piece tasted exactly like the rest of the waffle… delicious.  Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe waffles have a slightly “doughnut” batter taste to them, which is pretty awesome.  It’s almost like eating a funnel cake with butter and syrup (ooh! idea!).

No Waffle House/Shoppe meal is complete without some hash browns.  I got them with onions, peppers, mushrooms and cheese (the works).  They were a little overcooked in my opinion, but were fine with some hot sauce.  It’s pretty hard to ruin potatoes and cheese without completely burning them.

Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe is a quaint folksy place to come grab breakfast or lunch if you’re in the Chapel Hill area.  It’s popular among the local students, so expect to fight for a table, or you can just sit up front.  There are not a lot of vegetarian friendly choices (as per usual), but otherwise it is pretty good.  The prices are reasonable by Boston standards, but may be a little steep for a Waffle House clone (or progenitor?).  So, I’ll give it three and a half cheese sandwiches.

Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe
173 East Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27514 
(919) 929-9192

If you think that eating a farm-style omelet with a side of potatoes is a classic hipster brunch, then you obviously have never been on a farm.  Nor have you ever been to Bob Evans, a chain diner that has been specializing in breakfast for over 50 years.  It was originally founded in Columbus, OH - not too far from my dad’s place in Dayton, yet it might as well have been founded on Mars for the amount of difference between a Bob Evans franchise and the original.

Ironically, Bob Evans became popular for their sausages, which were considered to be the best around the Ohio area, which is strange that two vegetarian Indians would go there for breakfast.  In general, if you’re not a lacto-ovo-vegetarian, breakfast is not a good meal for you at most restaurants.  Bob Evans is a perfect example of this.  I was able to order a garden harvest omelet, which was monterey jack cheese, spinach tomatoes, onions and zucchini topped with a hollandaise sauce and a side of homefries.  The homefries weren’t quite fully unfrozen, so they weren’t particularly great, and the hollandaise sauce was an excess that I could not abide by.  There is a reason why Americans are so fat.  An omelet is an acceptable breakfast starter, but dousing it in a creamy egg yolk/butter sauce is ludicrous! 

To counteract my 4000 calorie breakfast, my dad just ordered two biscuits.  He has a very curious ordering habit.  At buffets (which he loves), he goes crazy and eats a ton of food, but at real sit-down restaurants (if that’s what you could call Bob Evans), he orders a side that is barely fit for an anorexic teenage girl.  The biscuits were pretty standard fare, that were obviously generically made and reheated on-site.

The coup de grace - my toast.  Now, you’ll say “Cheese sandwich guy, how could they possible screw up toast???”  Here’s how.  You may notice the bright yellow substance that is coated the lightly toasted substance that they call bread?  Well, you’re probably thinking that that is butter.  Turns out a) it’s margarine and b) that margarine is derived from a chemical waste dump in China.  I didn’t quite measure the melamine quantity in this specimen, but I’m pretty sure it’s above the toxic level for a small child.

There are a lot of crappy generic chain diners across America, and Bob Evans is probably the worst of them, which is saying a lot.  I once went to a T&A (another diner chain associated with gas stations - though not affiliated with Hustler or Playboy, surprisingly), and pretty much observed 1950’s-style racism in the kitchen there.  No racism (overtly) at this Bob Evans, but the quality of food here is far inferior to what I could get, even at a racist T&A.  So, I’ll give Bob Evans one cheese sandwich.

Bob Evans
220 Byers Road
Miamisburg, OH 45342-3615 
(937) 866-4222

The Laundromat that I usually go to closed down recently, so I was forced to walk a little further to another Laundromat. Adjacent to said cleanery was the Oxford Spa Café (a curious name for a place that is not a spa). I have gone on a few occasions (once for breakfast, once for lunch) to the “spa café that is not a spa and barely a café”*.

My first foray into the cuisine of Oxford Spa Café (OSC) was their breakfast burrito, which was a combination of salsa, cheese, eggs, and red onions in a tortilla. The service at OSC was not what I usually get from Café Rustica, though I would not fault OSC, as they were nice, just not friendly. I always hate reviewers that complain about service at restaurants, as any number of factors could influence the service in a restaurant that is beyond the control of said restaurant. However, I believe this does not apply to café’s, as cordiality of employees should increase for establishments that rely upon repeat business. Many restaurants can get away with having outstanding food and terrible service, however how different is one cup of coffee versus another? It is here where service is of utmost importance above all else. That and the fact that the most daunting work that a café employee must do is assemble a sandwich (I actually find sandwich assembly to be a great stress reliever). The burrito was definitely more flavorful and superior to that of South End Buttery, as the salsa was quite spicy and provided strong flavor to the otherwise banal egg – cheese - tortilla triumvirate. 

On a separate occasion, I got the Eastern, which was an egg mixed with feta cheese, roasted peppers and onions.  This was thoroughly disappointing, far beyond the $5.50 price, and felt like whoever decided that these ingredients would make a good breakfast sandwich should be shunned from the culinary world.

My final excursion to OSC was for lunch, where I got the Marco Polo, which was roasted eggplant, sun dried tomato pesto, lemon garlic aioli, provolone cheese, and lettuce in an Iggy’s baguette. This too was a well-constructed sandwich; however, once again the service was very business-like and made me feel like I was intruding on the fun they were having not serving food. For the price of the food and the haughty attitude of the employees, OSC definitely puts their worst foot forward. However, the quality of the sandwiches and baked goods is quite high, that ALMOST makes up for its faults. There are a few vegetarian options and one vegan option, though not enough to make me want to frequent this establishment. Also, they are listed as having gluten-free bread (on the internet), but I do not believe this is true anymore. Overall, I will give Oxford Spa Café three cheese sandwiches, for mediocre service hurts the good café.

*My catchphrase, not theirs.

Oxford Spa Cafe
102 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138-1811 
(617) 661-6988

After finally being able to get out of Dodge (Dodge in this case being Washington, DC - though, I am not trying to make a statement about politicians’ ability to avoid criminal charges), we drove down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  I spent the better part of the evening trying to figure out where I could go to eat in North Carolina that would be good to review.  One of the first places I came across that was heavily recommended on Yelp! was Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen.  This place primarily specializes in breakfast items, so I thought this would be a great way to start my day.  Boy was I wrong!

I got the egg and cheese biscuit and hashbrowns, as that used to be one of my favorite breakfast starters back when I ate meat.  While they do not publicize it, the biscuit here has no lard in it.  In fact, the cashier’s response to my question of the lardidity of the biscuit - “It’s just butter” (this statement is MUCH funnier if you say it in a thick Southern accent).  The egg and cheese biscuit is slightly smaller than a baby elephant (while I’ve never actually seen a baby elephant, I presume that it is only slightly bigger than this biscuit sandwich), and took me the better part of 30 minutes to eat.  While the biscuit is tasty, it’s so huge in comparison to the small egg and two slices of Kraft cheddar cheese inside that it becomes difficult to eat.  The hashbrowns were quite disappointing, as they taste exactly like McDonald’s hashbrowns, only more overcooked.  However, you may be reassured by the possibility that slightly fewer Mexicans were involved in making these hashbrowns.  How tolerant is this blog? I’ll even assuage the fears of xenophobes!

Despite spending the better part of the day recovering from the egg and cheese biscuit (and consuming twenty Tums), I decided to return to Sunrise Biscuit for one of their cinnamon rolls.  Now, I am a sucker for all things cinnamon, and when I saw that Sunrise Biscuit had a cinnamon roll, I knew I had to return, if only to spend another day in gastric misery.  Fortunately, it paid off to return to Sunrise Biscuit, as the cinnamon roll has been the highlight of my trip down here.  It had just the right amount of sweet-to-bread ratio to make it thoroughly enjoyable, and perhaps be one of the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had (sorry, Cinnabon!).

Sunrise Biscuit is not the friendliest towards vegetarians - in fact it’s not the friendliest to anyone who is not in a car.  It is basically drive-thru only establishment.  I missed the entrance, and tried parking nearby, but didn’t know how to get in, until a guy stuck his head out and said “You wanna get something, man?” (again, picture in Southern accent, it’s hilarious).  Nevertheless, between the cinnamon roll, egg and cheese (or just cheese) biscuit, you’ve got a pretty decent breakfast.  Just make sure to bring some Tums (something that is true anytime you go down South).  Vegans, unfortunately, you are out of luck as practically everything has butter in it.  Five cheese sandwiches for the cinnamon roll, three for the biscuit sandwich, and minus three for making me ill for the better part of a day.  When I put it into the cheese sandwich calculator (CSC), I get 3 and a half cheese sandwiches.

Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen
1305 East Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3308 
(919) 933-1324