Doughnut Plant, Manhattan

What: Creme Brule, Lemon Poppy Seed, Blackberry, Cashew Orange Blossom
Where: 379 Grand St, Manhattan 10002
When: Wednesday, March 12th, 2014
website

Doughnut Plant is celebrating it's 20th anniversary this year. FYI. They have a couple locations and we went to the one right on the other side of the Williamsburg Bridge during our 2014 Donut Tour. Sorry, Doughnut Tour. Gotta match the location. The set up was very industrial and polished. They had four main kinds of doughnuts: yeast, cake, square filled, and seeds. The seeds are smaller filled donuts with about a 3in diameter. We chose four of those; this was our 3rd stop of the day.

CW from top left: Blackberry, Cashew
Orange Blossom, Lemon Poppy Seed,
Creme Brule

The creme brule was well done with a great burnt sugar glaze and delicious filling. The lemon poppy seed was also excellent, great lemon flavoring. The blackberry was good with a strong filling, but almost seemed boring compared to the other flavors. The cashew orange blossom had good citrus flavor and reminded my sister and I of Apple Jacks for some weird reason. It also had some crushed nuts sprinkled on top. My sister's favorites were the cashew orange blossom and lemon poppy seed, my favorites were the creme brule and lemon poppy seed. In fact, in my notes for the review (what, you don't take notes about doughnuts you're eating???) I simply said: "Lemon is awesome."

The store's design scheme revolved
around these stylized representations of
their styles of doughnuts. This was the
bench seat.

The seeds ranged in price from $2.50-3.50, making this our most expensive stop of the day. They had a large (6in square) special doughnut for St. Patrick's Day that was $5.50 and had mint frosting, but we didn't try it. No bathrooms.

Blackberry: 3.5/5
Cashew Orange Blossom: 2/5
Creme Brule: 4.5/5
Lemon Poppy Seed: 4.5/5

Bonus pic

From The Worst-Case Scenario daily survival calendar 2014 by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht

(Chronicle Books San Francisco)

Planning a Tour

I'm pretty good at planning things. Trips. Weekly meals. Geometry lessons. It's one of my strong suits. (Maintaining a clean room, however, is not). So are my mom and sister. We like spreadsheets and notebooks and lists. My other sister likes spreadsheets and lists too, but her trips are a little more "fly by the seat of your pants" than my mom and oldest sister.

Anyways, point of this post: how to plan a tour.

Q: What do I mean by tour?
A: The tours I'm talking about aren't the guided tours with someone walking backwards in front of you with a mic telling you about the history of the buildings you pass while you wonder when you get to eat next. I'm talking about self-guided tours where you go where YOU want to go and eat when YOU want to eat. And geek out about something. This is your chance to pick something you're interested in, and focus just on that and have fun.

Q: Do I have to go somewhere to plan a tour?
A: No! You can take one of your hometown! See places you've never seen. Or revisit places you have seen all in one day!

And on to planning.

Step 1: Pick a focus.
What will your tour be of? What are you interested in? Do you want it to be food related? History related? Book related?
Ideas for focus:
Food - Donuts (duh), Pizza, Coffee
History - 5 oldest buildings in town, Original houses, abandoned buildings
Book - Did a book take place in the town? Can you follow in the character's footsteps for a day?
Places - Libraries, Parks

Step 2: Decide on a time frame.
Will your tour be a full day? Half day? How long will you spend at each place? How long will it take to get from place to place?

Step 3: Logistics - plan your route
Will you be walking, biking, or driving? Is there a particular place you need to start or finish (time wise or food wise)? If it's a food related tour, is there enough time between stops for digestion? Mark the locations you want to visit on a map (paper or online) and then connect the dots to plan your route.

Step 4: Prep work.
Do you need to research any of the buildings or locations? What hours are the food places open? Do you need to bring anything with you (camera, water bottle, money, bike lock).

Step 5: Enjoy your tour!
Grab a buddy and immerse yourself in something different for the day! Take pictures, write notes, or just enjoy your tour. Make sure you have a list of your stops and a good map to guide you!

Step 6: (Optional) Create a record of your tour.
Do you want to make a scrapbook? Write some online reviews? Make a slideshow to force family members to look at?

Besides my most recent donut tour of NYC (that one was all planned by my sister, I just got to go along for the ride, or walk) we also went on a Fangirl tour of Lincoln. Fangirl is a young adult book written by Rainbow Rowell that is about a freshman at UNL. My sister and I had a free afternoon in Lincoln and had both recently finished the book so we decided to follow in Cath's footsteps and visit places she went to throughout the book. It was great because I had only moved to Lincoln earlier that year so I got to see a lot of places I hadn't seen yet, and we got to get lost in the story again. This tour combined history, architecture, and food. Oh, and ridiculous photo ops:

Pies and Thighs, Brooklyn

What: Drunken, Coffee Cream, bonus chicken sandwich
Where: 166 S. 4th St, Brooklyn, 11211
When: Wednesday, March 12th, 2014
website

The second stop on our grand donut tour of NYC was a chicken/bakery place. Awesome combo. My sister and BIL had been raving about the honey butter, and it was about lunch time, so I said we might as well get some protein in. We ordered two donuts and the chicken on a biscuit sandwich. The honey butter was as advertised.

The donuts were awesome. The Drunken donut was there special for March and St. Patrick's Day and was made with some stout beer. It was huge, very dark in color, and had a very rich flavor. It was a cake donut and may have been my favorite from the tour. It almost tasted more savory than sweet.

The coffee cream donut was a raised, filled donut, that was possibly the tallest donut I have ever seen. I mean, besides the large novelty ones. It was almost spherical and the dough was quite spongy. Almost like an angel food or sponge cake. The filling was delicious and it was frosted with chocolate and had crushed up nuts as a sprinkle on top.

5/5 for the Drunken, 4/5 for the Coffee Cream

Peter Pan Bakery, Brooklyn NYC

What: Raised honey dip, red velvet cake, autumn spice cake, whole wheat cake
Where: 727 Manhattan Ave, Greenpoint 11222
When: Wednesday, March 12th, 2014
website


We started off Donut Tour 2014 in Brooklyn at Peter Pan Bakery. It was what I think of as an old school luncheonette counter. It seemed like everyone there knew each other and came in every day for a cup of coffee and some socialization. They had an impressive window display plus all the donuts in side. I know the picture looks less than impressive, but we didn't start our tour till around 11am. So I can only imagine how full the window is at 7am!

We selected four to try: honey dip, whole wheat cake, red velvet cake, and autumn spice cake. Donuts were $1.10 each and in the summer they make donut ice cream sandwiches (which I've just remembered, I've had before! In Somerville. If only I had pictures...). Anyways, back to this weeks' donuts. The honey dip was the only raised one of the bunch and you could definitely taste the honey tang in the glaze on it. Very airy, one of those ones that smooshes down when you try to cut it. The red velvet was dark on the outside, bright red on the inside. The whole wheat almost tasted more like a bagel or something than a donut and the autumn spice was ok. Not my favorite. The whole wheat tasted a little over fried, but the crunch almost added to the flavor. I was also informed by my tour guide (ie, sister) that their egg sandwiches are really good. But who has room for that on a four-stop donut tour?

We finished off the honey dip, but saved about half of the other three for my brother-in-law before moving on to our next stop, a chicken and pie place with fancy donuts.

Donut Tour - March 2014 - The Overview

This month marks my birth, and spring break, so I decided to celebrate by visiting my family on the east coast. My sister, who lives in NYC, decided to celebrate by planning out an extensive donut tour through Brooklyn and Manhattan. There was a shared google doc with info and a google map of our route. We were serious.


We visited four donut purveyors and purchased seven full sized donuts, four donut seeds, two donut holes, and three mini donuts. We also walked roughly six miles and didn't actually finish many of the donuts. We cut off bits and pieces to try them all out and then took leftovers to my brother in law and some of his coworkers.

Stops along our donut tour:
Peter Pan Bakery, Brooklyn
Pies and Thighs, Brooklyn
Donut Plant, Manhattan
Donut Pub, Manhattan

There are pictures and reviews coming from all of them, along with reviews for the Bagel Station in Port Jervis, NY, Frangelli's Bakery in Philadelphia, PA, Village Inn in Lincoln, and a revisit of The Doughnut Hole in Lincoln. So be excited!