Gettin' diabetes at SE:HQ (Doughnut Edition)

Mmm, DP in the morning, DP for lunch, and DP after work... that is the life for me. Fellow food bro Danny got it right when he conceded that doughnuts are the most sensual thing since Betty White starred in "Golden Girls." Move the fuck over cupcakes... doughnuts are here, queer, and you should get used to it. Wait, that's not 100% what I meant... but the concept is the same. Doughnuts are finally getting their moment in the spotlight and they have staying power. End of discussion. Serious Eats, aside from graciously financing my accelerated death, is always on the edge of revolutions in dessert, so they held (yet again) a taste test of the best doughnuts in NYC. Seeing as how I have nothing better to do with my free time, I dropped in to be the best freeloader I could.



Oh yes, this happened. Basically, a list of places was constructed (not including sit down restaurants of course), and doughnuts from the all five boroughs were assembled. Sort of like a UN of doughnuts, or a Justice League of doughnuts, except less useless and way more delicious... zing! There might've been discussion going on about things like texture and flavors or whatever, but I was kind of just eating things when they appeared in front of me. Sorry I can't really offer more insight on what goes on at SE:HQ, I was too mesmerized by the sugar.



Oh hai Robyn! Yeah, unsurprisingly I wasn't allowed to just walk in to the office and eat stuff. I had to wait for photographs of everything to be taken. I got suckered into plate cleaning and doughnut piling duties (which I was more than fine with since I got out of the instant oatmeal taste test).

Now onto the doughnuts...!



This was not a doughnut. But it was on the table. So I ate it. I was actually the only person eating it, which is embarrassing considering the fact that nearly 1/4 of it disappeared before the actual doughnut tasting began. When I showed up the next day, it was still there... I ate some more. It was still good. It's really just a giant raspberry danish 10" across that's super flaky on the outside, intimately moist on the inside, and in general... delightfully fruity. I have no clue where it's from, so if someone can point me to where this fantastically over-sized danish is from, you'll be my friend FOREVER. Thanks.



Doughnut holes from dough. Admittedly, I remember nothing about them, but the SE people seemed to be smitten. I can confirm that I put them in my mouth at some point, so I must've been down with how they tasted. Honestly, it's fried dough coated in sugar. It was going to taste good from the onset.



Then came more doughnut holes... this time from Donut Pub. These were denser, chewier, and all in all heftier (much like Brawny vs. generic paper towels). They were memorable indeed. I did get to try every single one of the varieties, but after a while it they all kind of tasted similar i.e. sweet. The texture was nice though, and the moistness was definitely appreciated.



Oh shit! Surprise... more doughnut holes. These were from Panya. Again... fried dough + sugar = good to me. Other people didn't seem to like them, and yeah... they had a bit of a weird aftertaste. The texture was cool though, I think they might've been infused with mochi so they were definitely chewier. I guess the Asian idea of "QQ" is applicable. Maybe the mochi accounted for the weirdness in flavor, but honestly I don't know.



No clue where these were from either. I just didn't want people to think that I spent the day poppin' doughnut holes in my mouth. I did more than my fair share of hard work aside from that... using my front teeth eating ring shaped doughnuts, jelly filled doughnuts, and even poop shaped doughnuts...



I bet Panya thought it would be cool to make a mochi doughnut in the shape of a twist. Slight oversight on their part - people who eat doughnuts are often immature. Can you honestly tell me that thing doesn't look like a Japanese cartoon poop? Just the general shape of it. Anyway, looking like a swirl of shit was no deterrent for me, I gladly ate it. While it is definitely not good by any means, it is for sure the most delicious poop-shaped object I've ever eaten. That's pretty damn good in my book.



I was responsible for bringing bombolinis from Sullivan Street Bakery. Holy shit these things are expensive. Like $3.25 for a small puff that lasts all of three bites. Two if you're a honking fatass like me. I know on the SE slideshow they had a tie for the "battle of the bombolinis," but that's absolute horse crap. Falai's are lighter, more subtle, and all in all... more sexual overall. Know why I don't have pictures of those? Because I was too busy eating them to care about pictures. Anyway, this isn't really a good comprehensive list of doughnuts, or anything really, I just really like eating doughnuts.

As for the aftermath? When I got back to where I was staying, I basically plopped myself down on the bed... then I curled up in a ball. That sugar high nonsense? Yeah, way past that. I didn't want to do anything, I entirely frozen by the charms of glazed sugars, jelly fillings, and fried dough. The thing that really sucks is that I don't distinctly remember that much about any of the doughnuts. Shiz, I knew which ones tasted good (basically all of them), but their nuances were lost on me. Apparently shoving bite after bite of fried dough from different places with little time separating each bite is not good for taste testing. Moral of this post? Doughnuts are delicious, photographing sugary delights is hard, being a food writer is even harder yo. People might just think that I just snap some pictures, eat some food, then write about it... well let me tell you something. That's pretty much it, but it's still more difficult than you'd think, but yeah... go eat doughnuts. They're good?