Donut Quest: Gourdough's and Mrs. Johnson's

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Austin- Only place I have ever used a fork and knife to eat a donut

In Austin, there is this magical trailer called Gourdoughs. Besides having a great name, they are making some of the best donuts I have ever had. This is nothing like what exists in New York. This is just a whole other genre of donuts; this is the definition of excess. I mean, you need to use a fork and knife for this donut because there is no possible way that you can eat one of these without it looking like you got in an all out brawl with Duncan Hines and Tim Hortons. The doughnuts here are what I call dessert donuts, in which they are bluntly covered and showered with sugary goodness. They picked up on the bacon trend with their Flying Pig, covered with in a maple syrup glaze and bacon. Do I need to really explain this? You can beat the trend to death but it works, salty sweet. 

Flying Pig

The Porky

They also are overachievers and push the donut making arts with the Porky, a donut covered in cream cheese, jalapeno jelly and Canadian bacon. The Porky sounds like an odd combination but it works, the salty Canadian bacon, gooey cream cheese and the sour sweet Jalapeno jelly just plain works. The Donuts themselves are fried to order and yeasted. Even without the outrageous toppings it was a good donut that was light and airy. That did not stop me from trying the pudding, cream cheese icing, and bananas and crushed vanilla wafers filled with cream. There was also the Mama’s cake filled with yellow cake batter and covered with chocolate icing. These were just coma inducing and hit you like a pastry cream filled bunker buster. I think the idea of yellow cake batter as a filling is genius and will most likely steal this idea for a future dessert. Sure it seems like that anyone can just put a mountain of toppings on a donut, but there is some finesse to the making of their creations and the donut itself is good enough to eat on its own, though with the addition of cream cheese, chocolate and meat does not hurt at all. 

Pudding- bananas, creamed filled, vanilla wafers, cream cheese

Mama's Cake

I am a romantic sucker, so places like Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery is right up my alley. I went there when it just about opened, about 8pm (hours are 7pm to 1pm the next day) and Airport Blvd. road was empty and dark with the sign from Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery they only sign of urban development. 

Their sign glowed like a firefly’s light in the darkness. It was slightly comforting to me given I was basically in the middle of nowhere looking for donuts. Their doughnut machine is impressive and the conveyor belt donut maker and glazer are impressive to watch. But much better is to eat them. I was rewarded for my 5 minute wait and patience with a free donut to eat on the go on top of my order. Love the places in New York but sitting in that dark parking lot, eating that fluffy sweet donut there was nothing better than that donut I was eating.

Gourdough’s

1503 S 1st St
Austin, TX 78704

Mrs. Johnson’s Bakery

4909 Airport Boulevard

Austin, TX

Federal Donuts: I'll have the Chicken

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: an undershirt not only keeps you warm, it can be used as an emergency napkin.

I hope to never have to ever go to a methadone clinic because from what I understand how it works and seen, Federal Donuts is a methadone clinic for fried chicken. There are people in a small space all wanting the same thing, schedule chicken "dispensing" and limited quantity of it.
Every day from 11:45 am and 5 pm on the weekends, Federal Donuts is dropping chicken into the fryer and selling until they run out. There are a limited number of chickens so once the chicken runs out, you got to head to Crown Chicken to get your fix. In order to get some chicken, you need to get a number, I was told that I could start getting a number around 11:45 but when I came by around 11:30, they were already at number 20 which was okay and still secured me for chicken. Also from what I saw, there is no limit really on how many tickets you are allowed to have so if you want to be "that guy" and get 8 whole chickens, have at it. Each number is equal to one order of chicken, which is half order of a chicken, which is 4 pieces. Unfortunately, this concept was too complicated for many and just enforces the fact that ¾ of Americans are retarded.

One Ticket=One order of chicken=4 pieces of chicken.

So for those of you that clearly did not do so hot on the SAT Math section, if you want a whole chicken, how many tickets should you get? Exactly.

I have to credit and praise the staff at Federal Donuts for dealing with and putting up with so much and even during a service rush, was polite, courteous and descent human beings. I am pretty sure if this was New York or the line at Difaras, some of these patrons would have ended up with a sharpened rusty piece of metal in them.

my tickets for a chicken fix

There are two styles of chicken that you can get, the twice fried Korean fried chicken glaze and the dry/Southern style chicken. The Korean fried style glazed chicken, you get it either in chili garlic or honey garlic and the dry/Southern Style, za'atar, coconut curry, harrisa or as is. Chicken after the jump!

Donut Quest Part II: My Search for Nostalgia?

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Dude asking for a Metro Card swipe will take a donut instead, apparently a donut=metro card swipe

In my quest to find the best and unfortunately the worst (not actively trying to find the worst) donuts in New York City, I came upon two in the Outer Boroughs, Alpha Donuts in Queens and Peter Pan Bakery in Brooklyn. I know there are other doughnut places in Brooklyn especially such as Mike’s Donuts and the newly opened Dough, but these two fall into the New York counter doughnuts and I had to check them out.

Take 2 in the future?

First up was Alpha Donuts all the way up in Queens. I am a bit of a nostalgic person and I tend to romanticize places, especially places dealings with food. Sometimes the image in my head is in sync with reality, but unfortunately Alpha Donuts was not. Alpha Donuts is located right outside the no. 7 train stop and the counter was filled. Everything about it was picturesque: the huge coffee machine going, people at the counter reading the newspaper and eating breakfast. To give it an even more New York vibe, two guys were talking about the upcoming season and Andy Petite retiring (this is truly sad, one of the great Yankee Pitchers). I wanted to start talking with that stereotypical Queens accent and dropping “o” and calling it “New Yawk”.