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

Anybody that knows me well knows that I cannot say “no” to a donut.  And that I spell doughnuts “donuts”.  Hakeem told me about a place that he reviewed for a website that he writes for (which I have also guest-contributed) called Nuok.com.  If you want to read Hakeem’s novice attempt at restaurant criticism, go here.  But if you want the real scoop about the Italian donuttiere - Bomboloni, continue reading my intrepid followers!

Bomboloni is the Italian version of a custard filled donut, and Bomboloni the restaurant is the Italian attempt to chime in on the nascent donut trend sweeping the nation*.  I apologize to what few vegan readers I have, as bomboloni and doughnuts by definition are not vegan, so maybe you can read more about my trip to Blossom erstwhile.  Nevertheless, after a long day of strolling the streets of New York, Hakeem and I had a hankering for something sweet.  Now, we had far more common sense than the 45 people waiting in line for Magnolia Bakery, so we went to Bomboloni to try out the donuts that he recently reviewed for Nuok.com. 

I ordered a pistachio bomboloni, which I devoured immediately, barely savoring any pistachio-custard-filled morsel.  Despite purchasing them late in the day, the donuts were still very fresh-tasting, probably biased by the quality of the custard filling.  Hakeem also had the bright idea that we buy a few more donuts to eat the next morning for breakfast, and I could not even muster a response to such a brilliant suggestion beyond “Sounds good.”

The next morning, I looked forward to trying out my gianduja donut and my tiramisu donut.  The tiramisu donut was topped with a chocolate wafer, which after a night sitting out was quite soggy. The donut was not as good as it could have been, but still 100X better than any Dunkin’ Donuts donut, which leads me to wonder just what exactly they are doing to their donuts to make them so bad.  The tiramasu filling was sort of a rummy chocolate flavor, and was pretty average especially when compared to the pistachio from yesterday.

The gianduja also had a pleasant dark chocolate flavor, and surprisingly, I preferred this to the tiramasu (I’m sure regular readers are familiar with my stance on tiramasu).  However, the chocolate was much darker, which I appreciate, so I like to think that I was at least getting some anti-oxidants from this donut.

The donuts at Bomboloni are fantastic, and the best part is, you can still get a good selection late in the afternoon.  This is one of those special New York places that not everyone has found out about, so it’s not been ruined like Magnolia.  I know I continually deride places like Magnolia, but I actually like it as a bakery.  I just don’t think it’s 45 min wait good.  Bomboloni is another such place - it’s great as long as you don’t have to wait in line (which we didn’t).  Because of that, I’ll give it four cheese sandwiches for making a great donut.

*I’m predicting that there is a donut trend that will finally eradicate the stupid cupcake trend that has already destroyed so many lives the last few years, and restore some balance to the universe.

Bomboloni
187 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023-5103 
(212) 877-3080

When I booked my tickets to go back to Kentucky, one of the things I most looked forward to doing is a review of the donuts back home. I had previously done a donut crawl with Vernon, Otis, Charles and their significant others in Boston, trying out the various local donut varietals, and quickly discovered that man was not meant to eat more than two donuts in one day. As such, I did a more conservative donut crawl by trying out the two premier donuttiers in Lexington, KY – Magee’s and Spalding’s Bakery.

My first day was spent cycling to Magee’s (which is pretty close to where I live), where I got a chocolate donut and a cup of coffee. After taking my first bite into the 5 mm thick fudge coating, I was glad that I decided not to do a donut crawl. While Magee’s is a much tastier donut than any that I had on the donut crawl (Verna’s compares favorably however), it is also considerably heavier and sweeter. It is so heavy that I wasn’t hungry for lunch for another four hours (and this was after bicycling around downtown Lexington for two hours to run errands). Magee’s has such a pleasant atmosphere that one could easily chat with a friend for hours over a cup of coffee and a donut, which actually may be the time required to digest a meal there. Magee’s also serves sandwiches (which is a recent invention), though the only vegetable option is a pimento cheese sandwich. This finding was the first reminder that Kentuckians don’t care about vegetarians (more on that in upcoming posts!). I’ll give Magee’s three and a half cheese sandwiches, as their donuts are fantastic, though really heavy. Boston eating has made my stomach very fragile and sensitive to high levels of butter and flour.

The next day I decided to bicycle to Spalding’s Bakery, which is technically only 10-15 blocks further away than Magee’s. Unfortunately, five of those blocks are highway roads, where cars whizz past you at 40-50 mph. I had never actually had a Spalding donut before, though had heard great things about it. One thing I did not hear was that Spalding’s bakery was literally just that. A bakery and nothing else. So my grand plans of sitting down enjoying a cup of coffee and a donut were foiled when I discovered a small entrance and a guy covered in flour walking up and taking my order. The Spalding’s donut was what I was hoping for in donut perfection – slightly crispy from being fried, sweet and very chocolaty. It was still pretty heavy, though considerably lighter than the Magee’s donut. I felt like I could eat another one, which is a good sign for any great donut.

I have always felt that great food comes out of Lexington, KY and Magee’s and Spalding’s Bakeries flies the bakery banner proudly for the city. I give Magee’s three and a half cheese sandwiches (would be four if it wasn’t so heavy), and Spalding’s four and a half cheese sandwiches (would be five if they had Magee’s dining area, see below).

Magee’s Bakery
726 East Main Street
Lexington, KY 40502-1602 
(859) 255-9482

Spalding’s Bakery
760 Winchester Road
Lexington, KY 40505 
(859) 252-3737

Magee’s Bakery