THESE DONUTS DO NOT

“What did you do on summer vacation?” 

Oh, not much. Just traveled to the East Coast, Midwest and West Coast. 

Which means I have some comments about regional donut varieties. 

Let’s start in the East. Quick take: Dunkin’ Donuts donuts suck. Horrid. Wicked bad. Taste tested the glazed, since it is the foundation of all donuts coming out of the kitchen. The Dunkin’ glazed was too doughy and too heavy, a half-assed crossbreed of a cake donut and a light, sweet glazed. The glaze? Weak. First, there wasn’t enough, it was like there was a crabby Boston nun in the back smacking staff with a ruler when they tried to put even a moderate amount of glaze on the sad sack circle of dough. The glaze itself wasn’t sweet enough to redeem the doughy disaster. The verdict: Dough is key and it fell short, and so did the glaze or other toppings. And don’t bring up a Boston cream. Stuffing pudding into a donut is a cheap trick that does not diminish the donut’s shortcomings. 

In short, the Dunkin’ donut honored its tight-ass East Coast roots: it was Puritanical. It provided no joy, no smiles, no happiness. It was an obligation to endure, not a treat to rejoice in.  

Next up was a sojourn to Chicago, which Carl Sandburg famously tagged as “The City of Big Shoulders.” He could have added big bodies. Really. Meander around the Windy City for a few days and you’ll realize today’s brawny, barrel-chested Midwesterners are the descendants of the swarms of muscular, strong-armed soldiers who provided the beef and heft to the Union Army during the Civil War that sent the scrawny, biscuit-eating Southerners scampering. 

And those big shoulders are still around, thanks to heaps of beef, pork, chicken, and every meat dish from 15 international kitchens, from Thai chicken and shish kabobs to gyros and parmesan chicken to Mongolian beef and sushi. Validating Sandburg’s description of Chicago as “Hog Butcher for the World,” are all manner of sausages, including bratwurst, liverwurst, Braunschweiger, Italian sausage, pork sausage, summer sausage, kielbasa, chorizo, pepperoni, salami, and blood sausage.

Oh, and pizza. The famed Chicago Deep Dish is about two inches of dough, sausage (or other meat), tomatoes, cheese and maybe a stray onion or green pepper. You have to eat it with a knife and fork. Eat three slices and you will need a nap to avoid a food coma. Not to discount the thin-crust pizza, which is solid, especially the wood-fired variety. However, you can run into a large pizza that isn’t sliced. It’s cut into little squares. No idea who thought of that. 

I was within walking distance of Stan’s doughnuts, a venerable and celebrated Chicago donut and coffee shop. Glazed donut. More disappointment. Too thick, too doughy and not that sweet. It’s like this city wants everyone to chew everything like it’s a spare rib. The Long Johns were also a long slog of dough, almost like bread, but topped with a solid sweet icing. I ate the icing, not the pastry. Same with maple. The Old Fashioned Glazed was better because it did not hide that it was basically a fancy cake donut. 

There was a winner. A vanilla French cruller which was light enough to make you think you were just eating vanilla icing striped with chocolate sauce. Nice. Made my teeth hurt, which is always a good sign. 

The donut tour ended on the West Coast, more precisely, swanky Marin County. 

Johnny’s Donuts were touted as the stars of the show. 

This description from Johnny’s Donuts webpage explains quite a bit: “Johnny’s artisanal doughnuts are handcrafted with the finest organic cool milled wheat flour and ingredients from locally sourced vendors. We use classic doughs adapted from the 1920’s.”

Once again, too much artisanal dough and not enough taste. Egad, the things were a couple inches high, guaranteeing a poor sweetness to dough ratio. The “Raised Donut” included, for unknown reasons, potato, apparently because in the 1920s there wasn’t enough flour to make a donut. And handmade? That explains why the “Old Fashioned” looked so old it had warped into a replica of a 4th Grader’s imperfect clay art project. Uneven, skinny here, fat there. Tasted moldy. I was terrified just pondering the “Frittah Thang, Wheat Free Donut.”

Back home I am comforted by the friendly confines of Hing’s Donuts, where glazed donuts are as light as sunshine and as sweet as cotton candy which means they consistently deliver an existential blast of joy, enlightenment and spiritual renewal. 

Jon Klusmire of Bishop does more than eat donuts when traveling but will spare you his rating system for determining which hotel chain provides the best free pens.