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

Donut Quest: Federal Donuts

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Hot coffee, even crappy tasting coffee always goes well with donuts

I took a side trip to Philly or the 6th Borough as I heard it referred to once before and I am now going to call it that for now on. In true hipster fashion, I heard about like, Federal Donuts before it was cool. And by that I randomly heard about it before Pete Wells wrote about it in the NY Times (side note, given his current star ratings, I am pretty sure that he would have given this place a 3 star, or maybe a four!~I kid).

Basic rundown, Michael Solomonov of his Israeli cuisine place Zahav in Philly, went and created a casual basically takeout place that serves donuts, fried chicken and coffee. He somehow created a place of all things I like. I gave this place a pretty good once over and went for the chicken and the donuts but for now, the skinny on the donuts.
The donuts are split into two categories, fancy donuts and hot donuts. The fancy donuts are made the day before and they start selling them at 7am and once they are done, they are done. The hot donuts are made to order and take some time but they are quite worth it. Like a true fatty, I sampled all of their doughnut offerings.

First the hot donuts. The hot donuts are straight, no shit sugar donuts. Depending on how busy it gets, and mind you, it gets busy it takes maybe at most 5 minutes before you get your fresh made donuts. They offer 3 kinds of hot donuts, appolonia (sugary cocoa and orange blossom flavored), Indian Cinnamon, and Vanilla Lavender. The donuts are visually, indistinguishable and they only way to tell them apart really is by smell or by eating them. the Appolonia which by far sounds like an exotic sex sugar is subtle on the cocoa and wisps of orange blossom. the vanilla lavender, the lavender is really only detectable by smell alone in my opinion. I think the Indian cinnamon was by far my favorite one, that had a turmeric/cardamon sugar concoction to it. They are sizable, tender and light. I do not know how they fare if you eat them say, 4-5 hours later for I pretty much ate them within 5 minutes after receiving them but if you can wait that long, hooray for your will power.

The girl had a hell of a smirk going on when she realized, i just ordered the entire doughnut menu, I would like to think it is because she was thoroughly impressed (I mean impressing girls is something I am used too) by the sheer manliness and bravery of consuming so many donuts or in reality...she was smirking at my gluttony and food geeking out. I did not eat all of them, though I did try all of them. Anyways, the fancy donuts are made the day before and they have six different kinds that can change up on a daily. The donuts that day were: Pinapple Coconut, Grapefruit Brown-Sugar, S-mores, Banana Walnut, "Razzberry and Halva Pistachio. The fancy donuts are quite dense and not as tender and dabble on the side of being dry. None of them are filled and get a healthy armor-like glaze. All of them taste as advertised and the ones that stood out to me was the Razzberry which was just bold and nice tartness, the Halva Pistachio which had some subtle tahini flavors and a good crunch from the pistachios.

You are waiting for me to make the New York Philly comparison, say maybe Doughnut Plant, but that is not happening. Federal Donuts is not comparable to Doughnut Plant in which they are creating two different style of doughnuts. It is worth a visit if you have never been, the atmosphere in there is communal and welcoming. If you are able to snag one of the 6 stools, it is one of those places where it is natural to strike up a conversation with the people around you and just proves a working theory that fried dough brings all together.

Federal Donuts
1219 S 2nd St
Philadelphia, PA 19147
federaldonuts.com/ 

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: Ray's Candy Store and Bouchon

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self: Never had doughnuts served to me by a lady in power suit, thanks Bouchon for giving me that experience

Ray's Candy Store- Don't know if they really have candy

The Donut quest has been lacking for a bit, and took a bit of a hiatus due to over consumption of other sweet confections. However, this weekend I had the opportunity to go and chow down on some more donuts. On this leg of the donut quest, I went to Ray’s Candy Store in the East Village and then to Bouchon Bakery at Columbus Circle. These two places are complete polar opposites from each other. The only thing that they have in common is that they both have some kind of doughnut on the menu and they have coffee and the coffee at Rays is less than desirable. 

Ray’s Candy Store has been around for years (according to via internet, 1974) and reminds me of the non-alcoholic and I am hoping less debauchery ridden Mars Bar (RIP). It is in short a dive: there is no sign for the place, indications of food being served in this hole is the early 90s retro sign for soft serve with the words "NYC ICY" and “BELGIAN FRIES” hand painted on the wooden awing. Stepping inside, there is just a counter, a soda machine, ice cream freezer with tubs of unnatural colored ice cream and saran wrapped pastries abandoned in a wicker basket. This is the kind of place that I have a nostalgic like for. Opened in 1974 and closed multiple times either by rent issues or health code violations, Ray’s Candy Store is no doubt an East Village staple here especially for those that have experienced a boozy grease craving after much libations. Though you can get the Obama burger and there fries, I was there for their beignets which is a fancy Frenchie word for doughnuts and for ½ dozen for 3 bucks, it is a downright bargain. Food after the jump!

Checking out Dekalb Market: Supermarkets do not exist in Brooklyn

Om Nomz Hero Note to Self:the way Dekalb market stacks and positions all the shipping containers, it would be an optimal place/fortress to hole up when the Zombie Apocalypse happens

I do not need to emphasize on how hot it was this previous Saturday, I wanted to have Slushies feed to me intravenously. So most people would stay in there cool and thankfully air conditioned place, lounge in their boxers and watch Aqua Teen, play COD and eat blows of milk ice cream (bowl of ice cream and pour milk over it, it will change your life). I had the bright idea of going out venturing out to the latest (and will bet not the last) market to open, Dekalb Market, I mean the heat is just a mental thing.

Robicelli's

Dekalb market differs from most of the markets that are currently in operation in which it is a permanent fixture, opened daily and instead of relying on pop-up tents and fold up tables, you got shipping containers. Though many would find the idea of using shipping containers as an odd place to be operating in and a Hooverville-like, they are spacious and stepping inside most of them, a lot of the vendors doctor and build them up that would make X to the Z, Xzbit jealous. Think of it as the most eco-friendly strip mall.Food after Jump!