DONUT REVIEW: Leavitt's Country Bakery, Conway, NH

Look for the sketchy shack sitting next to a few derelict sheds north of town. You'll know you're in the right place when you see the illegible hand-lettered sign and are surprised that there's no rocking chair and/or banjo player out front.

In other words, the atmosphere's exactly what you'd expect from backwoods New Hampshire. The donuts, on the other hand, aren't.



There's no good reason for a tiny shack with no competition within half a state in any direction to pump out donuts better than almost any you can find anywhere in Greater Boston, but these folks clearly don't listen to good reasons.

Much like you'd except from a place that's evolved for generations in its own parallel track, their donuts are a little wacky -- their oddly square apple fritters are some sort of waffle/donut hybrid -- but they're still totally recognizable, deep-fried in a rich n' sloppy manner that is too delicious to ever be all that off-putting.

(It was on Yelp!)

DONUT REVIEW: Honey Dew Donuts, Wakefield, MA

If Honey Dew was ever supposed to be a proper, predictable donut chain with a rigid chain of command and some sort of consistency between branches, then these dudes have gone completely off the reservation, Col. Kurtz-style. And I mean that as the highest of compliments.

Their apple cider donuts are not, in any way, reminiscent of what you'd get at some orchard, but they're still the best expression of an old-school, New England-style old-fashioned honey dew donut I've ever had in a chain store, and nothing like I've ever found at a Honey Dew before. In fact, it's easily better than what you'd find at similar independent donutters -- in particular, I'm thinking of Gail Ann in Belmont and Linda's in Arlington.

But, as rad as it was, the cider donut isn't why this place deserves the Kurtz Award. Their Reeses' Peanut Butter donut is absurd. And I don't use that word lightly. It's excessive and joyous in a Voodoo Donuts (in Portland, Oregon) kind of way that beats out even Kane's for sheer wackiness.

The donut itself isn't any better than their other raised offerings, but they still get all the credit in the universe for going balls-out. There's enough hypersweetened chocolate filling inside that sucker to frost a medium-sized cat, and the peanut butter-smeared top is coated with what my wife (a legitimate expert on all things Reeses') conservatively estimated to be the crumbled remains of "at least four full-size peanut butter cups."

(It's from Yelp!)

DONUT REVIEW: Cafe Boulis, Queens, NYC

Alternative Greek donuts! They look like onion rings and taste like baklava sneezed on a funnel cake.

They're advertised as fresh from the fryer, but unless you're lucky enough to waltz in as they're popping out, you will likely find yourself faced with the cooled down edition. The toppings are equally tricky. They advertise gaudy accoutrement like chocolate and cherry, but I have yet to trick them into topping my loukoumades with anything other than the baklava special: honey, cinnamon, and powdered sugar.

And if that saccharine typhoon didn't do it for you, they've got you covered: Every seat is within reach of the only shakers I've ever seen that dispense nothing but powdered sugar. But not even I, who could almost be described as an aspiring diabetic, bother with the sugar. The loukoumades come riding in on such an excessive bath of honey that it's scientifically impossible to make them any sweeter. They have broken the sweetness barrier.

Whacko food jockeys constantly hype the honey, but it took these donuts to convince me that it's a legitimate miracle food. Because, even though they are literally floating in honey, the donuts never sogged up. Given that it's Greek food, I'm going to hop out on a stereotype and call it alchemy. I've never been a dunker, but that's clearly because I've only tried dining in coffee or tea - never occurred to me to just jam those Hellenic bastards into a swamp of even more sugar. Their crisp beer-batter outside totally holds up, and mainlining honey never gets old.

(Also on the Yelp)

DONUT REVIEW: Star Deli, Brooklyn, NYC

Maybe the most Polish place to buy donuts in all of Greenpoint. Just straight up raw Poland. Even their change trays - those dopey ashtray things that Europeans love to use as a middleman instead of handing you your nickels and dimes directly - are all in Polish. It may be the most faithful recreation of a sketchy Polish convenience store in the entire country. And the donuts almost live up that ambience.

In Polish terms, their selection is epic. Most places give you one glazed paczki and one with powdered sugar, then call it a day. Star comes through with the paczki, but then leaves the reservation with two different kinds of dough braids, one of which - brace yourself- also has jam in it!

Unfortunately, that jam is Star's downfall. Its rivals all bloat their paczki with variations on fresh, handmade berry jams - Star Deli just settles for clumpy, store-bought blackberry stuff. Sad times, and a total betrayal of their dough, fry, and glaze. Jam isn't my favorite part of a paczki, but bad jam is my least favorite part. When you're slogging your way through all that bread, there's nothing to look forward to.

(Also posted on Yelp)

DONUT REVIEW: The Donut Pub, Manhattan, New York

Of all the donuts in town, these are the New Yorkest.

And I don't mean New York in the pretentious, carry-a-handbag-irrespective-of-gender-and-look-­down-on-the-misguided-philistines-everywhere-else-­in-the-country sense, but rather in the proud-city-where-generations-have-assembled-a-­unique-culture-based-on-something-more-than-an-­overblown-regional-superiority-complex sense.

The Pub sells what should probably be canonized as the quintessential New York donut, as well as the best fried pastry you'll find outside of Brooklyn. 

They dish out the ideal versions of most New York originals, particularly the whole wheats and those apple filled things with frosting and dried apple shavings on top, and they do it with the sort of classic New York indifference that decades of old movies have conditioned me to expect. Even the regulars look a little wary if you come to close.



As a rule, their diminutive cake donuts are more cake than donut, and lack enough crust to make them with passing up a raised donut for. Because their raised donuts are awesome. Their vanilla frosting is without peer, and they offer a consistent, unique roster. 

My favorite is the vanilla blueberry thing they hide under the counter. It's a normal vanilla frosted raised donut, only there's a dip in the middle in place of a hole, and its dumped full of blueberry jelly. The highlight, and I cannot hype this enough, is that, under this jam, they totally frost the entire donut. It's the dumbest, sugariest surprise ever, and it gets me every time. Attention to those dumb details totally sets the Pub apart. 



Their trendier competitors hoot and holler about their artisinal pastries, but when you look beyond the haircuts and rhetoric and consider the actual craftsmanship the term implies, it's clear the old school dudes behind the pub are some of the finest artisans in the city. Even if they'd stare you the hell down for saying so.

(It's also posted on Yelp)

Panera Bread does not have donuts, but I kinda forgive them

If you get an entree and coffee at Panera and don't use the "add any baked treat for $0.99" to get the Frankenstinian abomination they call a "cobblestone sweet roll," then you are squandering your life.

It's part coffee roll, part monkey bread, part cobbler and part religious experience. Easily the best pastry Panera's ever seen, and probably the dopest baked good you can get from a chain coffee shop.

It's such a titillating hot-mess-in-a-muffin-cup that I even briefly considered not even bothering to stop by Verna's down the street and pick up a proper donut on the way home. Briefly.

FOR THE RECORD: The unlimited free coffee refills more than justify the price. Stick to the dark roast, but cut it with decaf unless you're looking to tweak out pretty hardcore.

(Originally on Yelp)

DONUT REVIEW: Tony's Donut Shop, Portland, ME

To walk into Tony's Donuts is to walk into the throbbing, clanging heart of the Donut-Industrial Complex. If Colonial Do-Nuts in Brockton is the sort of Wonka-esque factory in which I wish donuts were created, then Tony's is the raw, utilitarian portrayal of how most donuts are really brought to life.

It feels like you're stepping into a donut factory outlet, where the retail customer is a mere afterthought. The donuts, on the other hand, are definitely not.



Tony knows how to fry dough, and he knows how to glaze it. He fries everything a bit on the light side, so that the cake donuts aren't as deeply crunchy as I'd like and the raised donuts don't have the soaked-in greasy richness they deserve, but everything's still crispy, heavily glazed, and unmistakably donutty.


(The original went up on Yelp)

DONUT REVIEW: The Holy Donut, Portsmouth, Maine

I'd rather jam my foot in a blender than give a less-than-glowing review to true innovators of the Donut Arts like the folks at Holy Donut, but it may be time to admit that potatoes and donuts don't mix.

The same things that make potato dough the foundation of the world's dopest cinnamon rolls also make it utterly unsuited to a good donut. It's so thick and rich that it doesn't puffily explode like a light glazed honey dipper, and yet just yeasty and chewy enough that it doesn't crisp and fry like a proper cakey old-fashioned. Instead, it wallows in oil until it emerges at a sort of unhappy medium, a chewy ring that's more greasy bagel than proper donut.

That said, if you're a bagel type, you'll probably be right at home, especially since the store itself is a wildly welcoming place full of good, wholesome folks. And, unfortunately, weird and unspectacular donuts.

(Originally posted on Yelp)

DONUT REVIEW: Kennebec Cafe, Kennebec, ME

When a job offer forced me to relocate rather suddenly, and I only had one free weekend left, my New England bucket suffered some pretty brutal pruning (Sorry, Cape Cod! Adios, most of Vermont! Maybe next time, long-lost relatives in Mid-Coast Maine!). In the end, the only thing left standing was a pilgrimage to Fairfield, Maine for what my friends at the Boston Globe referred to as "the most innovative donuts in the Northeast."

When you tally up all the hotel rooms and gas and tolls and whatnot, the bill for the trip came out to something like $23 per donut... and they were totally worth it.

I've always wondered what a proper sit-down donut-based restaurant would look like, and the Kennebec Cafe may be the closest we will ever come to that ideal. Sure, they serve hashbrowns and French toast for the lame, stuck-in-the-past breakfast fundamentalists, but donuts are the real draw. After all, you don't seem them dedicating an entire separate menu to 58 different varieties of over-easy egg, do you?

Speaking of which, the donut menus are scrawled on whiteboards throughout the cramped cafe, and options range from the self explanatory "S'mores" to the slightly more cryptic "Salty Dog" (salted peanuts on a chocolate cake donut with chocolate frosting).

Because they're fried to order, you can order any donut on the menu at any time of day, a fact which should probably be on the front page of the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce website.

The variety's intimidating as all hell, but it's hard to fail miserably, especially if you're hedging your bets with a full half-dozen. One warning? Beware the pie-themed donuts, as they're generally just old-fashioneds with a whole dump of pie filling on top, which leads to all sorts of sogginess and demands rapid consumption.



Not all donuts come on that old-fashioned base, and batter offerings include chocolate, carrot cake, and god only knows what else. The aforementioned carrot cake was easily the most delicious donut base, while s'mores was the most excessively rad overall donut experience.

While we were there, almost every other patron in the place attempted to order a donut to go, and got shot down every time, because the poor donut chef could barely even keep up with the sit-down orders. They were better off in the end anyway, because as my attempts to eat the leftovers throughout the day demonstrated, the $2 Kennebec donuts lose almost all their appeal when they're not fresh. They sog up into plain, unappealing, non-crispy cake donuts the instant you step out of the restaurant, and no amount of wacky bacon-related toppings can bring them back from the brink.

(I first posted this on Yelp)

DONUT REVIEW: Top Donut, Lowell, MA

Before I start, there's something I've got to get off my chest: Top Donut makes the best apple fritter I've had in New England. It's the richest, greasiest, most glazed donut-related object I've swallowed, an all-hands-on-deck, nutrition-be-damned celebration of everything that's right about fried dough in all its forms.

That said, here's my actual review:

If you found it on any street corner in Los Angeles, Top Donut would be utterly unremarkable. It's the classic California donut experience, from the beautiful glaze-mongering, Dunkin-defying butterflied shape of their old-fashioned donuts (which you can get glazed, chocolate frosted, or maple frosted, in true West Coast fashion) to the cheery, strawberry and chocolate-frosted raised offerings. Most of the time, when I'm there, there are even, in the truest Californian style, remarkably friendly ladies behind the counter talking among themselves in Vietnamese. And, of course, there's that ungodly apple fritter, which nobody else back East has even come close to approximating.

The thing that makes Top astonishing, and which earns it five stars, is that it's nowhere near the Golden State. It's in Lowell, which is about as far from California as you can get, both literally and figuratively.

I have no idea how they've managed to avoid New England Donut Syndrome for so long, but I absolutely could not be more pleased that they've done so.

(This review is from Yelp!)

Artisanal donuts attract Brooklyn scumwads; real donuts don't

Williamsburg fancy lads are probably superficial dirtbags.

This is not a fresh observation. It is, however, an informed one.

When you frequent enough of their donut shops, you learn things about people. Some of those things are stereotypes. That doesn’t preclude them from being spot on.

Yesterday morning, I dropped by Dunwell Donuts in Williamsburg for a little chocolate-frosted, peanut-covered victory lap at the end of my morning run. A hundred feet from the entrance, still getting my jog on, I sweated past some funhat dorflord walking as if someone had stolen his stilts and rammed them up his backhole. The dude glared out of the corner of his chunky, white-frame glasses as I sweated past, judging the hell out of me every foot of the way.

By the time I hit Dunwell, it was obvious the funhat was headed in for a donut too. So, because I’m a good and honest person, I held the door open long enough that he could could pass through without soiling his latte-stirring hand on that swinging glass door of the masses. I then hustled over to wait for the nice lady behind the counter, who totally threw me off by coming in with her hair about a foot shorter than it had been the previous day, to finish with her current customer and get me my donut. It’s a simple process, one her and I have practiced dozens of times in the past year, and one which I’d honed to a tip-free, exact-change art form.

And that was when hatlord made his move, sidling up to the counter under the pretext of looking at the vegan butterfinger-style candybars they keep up there, then seamlessly slipping in front of me in the line and ordering my chocolate peanut donut. It wasn’t the last one or anything, but I still hate him for it. That knit-capped, matching-scarf-wearing weaseldong totally cut in line. My third-grade classmates would have been pissed.

And, to put a neat little bow on the whole thing, still smarting from the previous morning’s indignity, I stopped by Peter Pan up in Greenpoint the next day to bag a red velvet crueller for myself and a French crueller for a coworker. On my way in, I passed a crew of Polish dudes who, I would learn from their subsequent  conversation, were on their way to a construction site. One of them was holding the door open for his buddies. I arrived somewhere in the middle of the Pole crew and, having learned from yesterday’s hepcat debacle, I hung back politely and waited for them to finish their door-holding and assume their rightful places in line. The dude holding the door was having none of it. I’d arrived at the door mid-group, and he’d be damned if that didn’t mean that I’d be getting my donuts mid-group as well. So, he waved me in, and there I stood, listening to them jabber on about construction nonsense in a wacky mix of Polish and English, awash in the goodwill toward men that can only come by not getting screwed over in line by a mustachioed, chunky glasses-wearing artistinal cholostomy bag of a human being.

Williamsburg’s my home, and I’m every bit as guilty of gentrifying the life out of it as the next guy, but it’s got serious douche issues, and my back-to-back door-holding experiences, one at a hip shrine to the vegan and artisanal, and the other at the old-school, working-class, secretly-still-using-transfat neighborhood institution, brought it all into relief.

DONUT REVIEW: Scott's Food, Manhattan, NYC

 I wish Scott's Food had better donuts, but I yelped them anyway.

Their donuts are surprisingly decent -- almost worth their $2 price tag -- provided you were buying them four days ago. When they might have been fresh.

Donuts cost $1. That's why the saying is "I'll bet you dollars to donuts" -- it's an exchange rate. And if you're charging more than that -- and a couple highfalutin' NYC joints do -- you better have some seriously fancypants donuts. 

And somehow, utterly improbably, this dumb little lunch counter nearly pulls it off. Their donuts come in classic New York style, like you see at every coffee cart in Manhattan, except huge and frosted heavier than the tips of my spiked hair in 1997. 

In fact, they nail the frosting and sprinkles so hard that it very nearly redeems what are otherwise the stalest donuts that I -- a fixture at the day-old-donut discount rack at three different nearby supermarkets -- have encountered. They even beat out the slimewad with the coffee cart out front of the high school down the road from my apartment. And I'm no business consultant, but I'm pretty sure "beat out the slimewad" is a sentence you never want to see associated with your enterprise, ever.