Comfy Cozy Classy

Just a few adjectives to describe Verna's on a small corner along Mass Ave:

It's a small bakery that makes a variety of cookies, pies, and other baked goods--and looking back on it, I regret not trying some champagne cookies or a spring-themed confection--but I'm after the donuts. I've read some not-so favorable comments about the service here, but the woman at the counter was really nice! She even said "excuse me" when she coughed; maybe folks are talking about some other grouchy person that shows up at other times. 

Apologies for the lack of interior pictures ^_^; but it's a nice place for a quick bite. The donut rack is situated behind the counter, and there's a sizable display of other goodies when you walk in the store, including a day old rack of grab-bag stuff for $2. There aren't too many seats, but the seating area is like a nice pocket with a round table and another small table. A few old-timers were talking about golf--I've never heard seniors cuss so much about golf of all things, it was kind of hilarious--and people know each other's names (cliche alert :p); there's definitely a neighborhood feel to the place. 

So excellent employee and interesting patrons aside, I freaking love these donuts. Union Square may have the Cambridge area when it comes to gourmet variety, but Verna's is the local tops when it comes to quality and value. Each regular donut is about $1 each, and there's a good mix of treats to choose from. 

They offer a "chocolate frosted" and a "chocolate covered" (or something like that); both look the same from across the counter, but I'm assuming the difference is that the latter is just a regular chocolate raised donut. Luckily I got the "chocolate frosted", which means that they cover the donut with regular glaze first and then apply a top coating of chocolate, JUST LIKE KRISPY KREME :] ! It made my day; it's like a 2 for 1 deal, you get the best of the classic glaze and chocolate worlds on one raised donut.

I then went for the honey dipped chocolate, my cake donut selection for this trip. Tender, moist, generously coated with glaze, it was like eating a fried brownie but way better. The only thing that would have made it better is if I got it immediately after they flipped it out of the fry and glaze bath. Great cake donut, especially for a buck.

Tailing the end was the coconut, a fantastic cake donut covered in a sugary glaze with flakes of dessicated coconut all over the place. Again, a tasty, moist, cakey interior; the coconut-glaze coating was absolutely amazing, offering a sweet crunch to offset the pillow-y core of the donut. Definitely a donut I would like to revisit in the future.

The Other Doughboy

Possibly related to the Pillsbury one, but you be the judge.

I decided to stop here on a sunny afternoon just 'cause. I thought I would be in the bad part of town, but Doughboy Donuts is actually a 15-ish minute walk from the convention center in South Boston, which is one the nicest places ever. The location is right on a corner a block down from the Broadway stop, and is open 24 hours!

 

So I'm finally sticking to my quarter dozen rule, and I remembered to take the family photo:

 The odd one out is the item that looks like a giant turd, aka the marbled cruller:

Its appearance looks questionable, but a quick bite reveals the beautiful dance between a plain cake and chocolate cake dough:

A tad dry here and there, but there were lots of great spots that had sugar nooks and crannies. A very hefty donut that brings two essential flavors together in a happy, delicious marriage. 

I couldn't not get the blueberry cake since it's one of the best donuts ever, so I did -- maybe I'll go for something else at the next place I visit:

This was the doppelganger to the one at Demet's, mostly because of the glaze-is-only-on-the-side-and-not-on-the-top appearance (I think it really is a mom 'n pop East Coast thing). Still don't know why they do that here but it works. I found this one to be a little drier than the marble cruller:

Very cakey, would have loved a stronger blueberry flavor and maybe some more glaze. Overall, a pretty solid donut that still beats most that Dunkin has to offer. 

Like most of the mom-n-pop places I've seen so far, the raised donuts are the real gems, especially the FRUITY PEBBLES DONUT available at the Doughboy:

Easily one of my new favorite donuts ever, its combination of crispy cereal, fluffy/chewy/airy raised dough, and abundant sweet glaze is a texture and flavor highlight. Like its Lucky Charms brethren at Stacked Donuts , the Fruity Pebbles might be seen as kind of a lazy mashing of two things into one (Guy #1: "Duuude...what if we put doritos in a taco?" Guy #2: "Duuude...what if doritos WAS the taco?!"). They're not sophisticated culinary landmarks; they're fun interpretations and experiments with ingredients that we have grown to love over the years. And I love this one:

The glaze was standard strawberry flavored, though with a slightly sweeter taste than usual. It was probably the fruity pebbles giving an extra kick. Seeing how the crunch of cereal compliments a raised donut so well, I would actually prefer these fruity pebbles over sprinkles. And I finally have an image of the legendary glaze waterfall that I alluded to in previous posts:

If only Niagara Falls was like this...

A Dunkin Retrospective

I recently had the dubious privilege of visiting the first ever Dunkin Donuts location in Quincy, which should be one of a number of essential pilgrimages for donut lovers everywhere:

It was...essentially like the millions of other Dunkin locations out there. And yeah, I mostly think current Dunkin products to be of ho-hum, mass-produced-packaging quality that can't even compare to a far more delicious franchise.

Yet, the modest shop along the Southern Artery is a landmark that birthed the breakfast behemoth that dominates the East Coast and spots in dozens of countries around the world. Its menu has dressed the quintessential fried ring with vibrant cast of colors, flavors, toppings and textures in accordance to the local and contemporary palate, evidenced by the many iterations that I have obtained:

 Peeps Spring Donut. cuuuuute

Girl Scout Thin Mints? I think

Strawberry with sprinkles

Glazed Chocolate Cake

Strawberry but slightly more patriotic

Red velvet

Boston Creme filled

Butternut crunch

Current ventures include extending into the territory of a certain other chain and expanding into the fast food sandwich realm.

The original location still features some distinct vintage-looking furnishings including diner-y stools:

and a table that I would love to have in my apartment someday:

Just in case you missed the sign outside, there's a plaque to remind you where you're at:

and pictures of what ancient civilization looked like:

After traveling about 30 minutes on the T, you'd think I would have gotten a ton of donuts to celebrate the occasion. But, in spirit of humble beginnings and nostalgia, I decided to settle for the old fashioned, absent of glaze and fixings, offering only the simple flavor and texture of an extensive ingredient list:

While it may have placed other shops out of business and have gravitated more towards the coffee market in its quest for global prominence, there's no denying the tenacity of Dunkin's adapting business model. 

Although the lasting impression of the shop a bit anticlimactic, it's always curious to see the roots once you have seen the tree grow.

 

Cheers to 60+ years

Oh yea that donut shop looks nearby...on Gmaps

A quick search of "donuts in Boston" and omitting Dunkin brought up Demet's Donuts along the Mystic River, which I thought was just a made up place from Clint Eastwood's movie >_> I looked up the directions and thought "pff that's only going to take 30mins tops". 1 hour and 40 minutes later:

But in a town dominated by Dunkin, Demet's is one of a handful of mom n pop - like locations. Sadly my mind was just on "RAAHH BUY DONUTS EAT DONUTS TAKE PICTURES OF DONUTS" and I didn't take pictures of the interior, which sports the classic donut shop decor. But that's what yelp is for.

The guy asked how many donuts I wanted; I was already kind of pooped from walking 4 miles so I ended up saying 4 when I knew I should have just stuck with 3. I couldn't even decide what to get for the 4th donut and the guy kind of Jedi mind tricked me into getting this filled one. Lessons learned: I'm easily swayed XD. I also must stick with 3 donuts for a representative sample of a shop (1 raised, 1 cake, 1 special/misc/wild card/random). Btws this fellow donut hunter has a very easy-to-follow methodology. And a nicer blog. Actually he has his own domain name and site. I swear I'll spruce this place up/migrate to a more presentable platform when grad school winds down! For now, enjoy the poorly aligned photos and improperly sized frames.

ANYWAY, the four horsemen of Demet's:

So this is the one that I just agreed to buy XD 

First bite of the lemon coconut crunch and I could already tell that Demet's dough is AMAZING: fluffy, chewy, boasting the quintessential yeasty flavor. Couldn't really get a strong coconut flavor (unlike the coconut creme at Donut Plant, which I need to write about soon! and is also kind of an unfair comparison...) but the dessicated coconut bits added to the streussel-y crunch on top of the icing. The lemon part came from the filling, and it was exactly like packaged/mass produced lemon fillings that you find in store-bought danishes (also some paczki is similar to this donut in terms of the filling used...which I must also write about). 

So all in all, probably wasn't that much lemon that went into the filling. I'm not a big fan of filled donuts to begin with, but this was alright.


When I got to the "honey dipped" raised, I realized that Demet's dips their donuts in a peculiar way; mostly the sides are coated, and you have a disc area on both the top and the bottom that are icing-less. 

It's like they rolled the glaze onto it's side; just a curious thing I've never seen before. But that dough....soooooooo good, it puts Dunkin to shame. I'm probably going to be bashing Dunkin a bit, but Dunkin isn't bad at all! It's just not that great... Back to the dough: 

fluffy, chewy, definitely the consistency that you would want from a classic donut spot. If I could make a pillow out of it, I would. But that would be kind of gross and creepy. I don't really know where the honey was in all of this, but I think that's what East Coasters call the regular glaze.


I couldn't not get the blueberry cake! One of the best varieties ever despite the fact that no actual blueberry was even within a 10 foot radius of this donut. 

But who cares!? It's still freaking delicious. Their cake dough was pretty voluminous, and kind of reminded me of Betty Crocker blueberry muffin mix.  Note the pretend blueberries; fun-fact, they're specs of starch and sugar, artificially colored to give the blueberry illusion.

Once more, we have the peculiar side-roll glaze, but this was a great donut nevertheless. (I still covet the blueberry cakes at Royal Jelly back home) .

Bringing up the rear was the mind trick donut's second cousin, the chocolate coconut crunch. Probably my favorite of the bunch--I do leave the best for last ;D 

The dough I can't stop raving about serves as the base for a rich/sweet chocolate glaze, topped with the familiar streusel-y coconuty crunch (again, coconut flavor is somewhat MIA). It just so happened that there were these random troughs in the dough where EXTRA icing decided to hide. 

I do-nut have much else to say (hahahaha see what I did there??!?!?!!) about the choco-coco-nut-donut, except that it is delishuss; it's predecessors built up the experience for the final act. Worth the 4 mile walk. And the 4 mile walk back.

Mmmmmm Doughnuts

Read about this place from many "Boston must-visit" lists; on foot, I literally found the shop by following the sweet doughy scent of magic down the street from Union Square. And thus twas the spot that bore the name Union Square Donuts:

The shop's owner makes an interesting comparison of perspective when discussing the notion of "doughnut" versus the notion of "pastry", and yea, the growing prominence of artisan fried rings draws in eclectic ingredients, textures, and ideas that elevate the layman's donut into a more sophisticated .


In short, I understand why each donut averages $3....although somewhere in my head I do start to complain about "but I can get a donut for $0.83 @ Dunkin blahblahblahwhinewhineb**chb**ch". But we're here to talk about Union Square Donuts and how awesome it is!

I think this Bow St. place is a new relocation of the business??? At any rate it's a charming environment; the brightly-lit seating area has some nice futons, coffee tables, and seats, and it's literally like walking into someone's house. This is probably the nicest interiors of a donut shop that I've ever seen, rivaling that of the Exchange St. branch of the Holy Donut in Maine, and Royal Jelly back home in VJO (kay Royal Jelly is not the nicest place ever but it gets plus points for nostalgia). 

Every time I visit a donut shop, I'm always conflicted about what to order; "what can I not get anywhere else???" I'm a sucker for house-specials, seasonals, and limited-time-onlys, while also trying to order a somewhat diverse balance of flavors and colors. With my recent trend of visits, I end up buying 3 donuts as a good representative sampling of a shop.

On the way here, I had already planned to get the much-acclaimed maple bacon: 

And hohoho I can see why people love this thing. I wasn't expecting like SIZZLING bacon fresh off the pan (although I would be impressed if I saw that in a donut shop), and I've had some bacon maple bars that were decorated with strips of unpleasantly lardy bacon >.<  However, Union Square had some broken bacon on top of the maple glaze; you got a few nice bits here and there but you had some mighty chunks in a lot of other places, giving a more distributed bacon flavor for every bite. I probably would have preferred a stronger "maple" flavor but that's just my taste. The yeast donuts here are nice and chewy; when combined with the sweet sugary-ness of the glaze and the savory smokiness of the meaty topping, the maple bacon marries some of the best food profiles into one neat package.

Like I said, I'm a sucker for special/limited time sh!t, so I ended up getting the "birthday cake" donut:

Gotta be honest...this was kind of a meh donut. It was pretty standard tasting and didn't offer anything that a similar donut at a cheaper location couldn't give. Plenty of sprinkles adorning the chocolate icing, but I was expecting a stronger cake batter/vanilla-ish flavor, and maybe some decorative candy spots in the batter. Aka, I wished they took a confetti cake mix, transformed it into donut dough, and fried the cake out of it. Now THAT sounds delicious (hint hint if any actual human being is reading this, you should get some confetti cake mix and turn that into donuts). All in all, this was definitely subpar for a $2 price tag.

I like to save the best for last, that being the STRAWBERRY DONUT! 

Sounds run-of-the-mill, but it's the simplicity that makes it complex. I don't really have a good explanation to justify that comment. But was the donut delicious? OH JESUUS YES! As with the maple bacon, Union Square's amazing yeast/raised dough serves as the foundation, which is already fantastic on it's own. But the real jewel is the glaze: real strawberries reduced with some sugar and some other ingredients to give it the consistency, and it might have as well included crack because I freaking loved it. 

Now, I enjoy standard strawberry glazes as much as the next person, but those glazes are kind of one dimensional: you have this artificial Nesquik flavor and some icing sweetness; ok maybe that was 2 dimensions. Union Square on the other hand (and real strawberry glazes worldwide) showcases the fruit's natural flavor, bringing the strawberry's tart and sour notes into play. And then they apply a generous coating all over the place, creating one of my new favorite donuts ever. Morning complete.

Forgot to take a family photo. oops.