I was only in town for a few days but this was deffo on my hitlist of places to try, so on New Year's Eve with a friend desperate to share some deliciously exciting lovelife chat, the stars aligned for the perfect opportunity to catch up over some tasty donuts (doughnuts?).
It's a cosy little place with maybe 4 or 5 small tables so if it weren't for the fact that we were meeting on the eerily quiet lull before Hogmanay, I wouldn't count on being able to bagsie a seat here.
I see that they do Papercup coffee here. Oooh, good. For some reason, though, my brain went totally blank when I ordered my drink and I ended up with a cappuccino. That's like my least favourite coffee! Why did I do that? I was thrown by my friend ordering peppermint tea (with a donut? What is wrong with you? Has love made you lose your mind?), so I momentarily forgot that espressos and black Americanos and even flat whites exist, and I found myself with a cappuccino. Whatever. I'm not really here for the coffee, but good to know they sell the good stuff. But oh, the main act, the donuts. Oh! What beauts they are. The candied pistachio looks pretty and bejewelled with green but I wanted the full experience of a donut filled with goo so I went for a PB&J one, and so did my friend. It was very very good. The texture was like a bread/cake hybrid. Not the light-as-air fluff of a Krispy Kreme - this had some satisfying substance to it, with the salty peanut butter on top the perfect counter to the fruity jamminess inside. Yum yum yum. The creme brûlée ones seemed to be a particular favourite with the punters while we were there, so I'll maybe try one of them next time - particularly as I was able to watch the donut fella blowtorching a batch one-by-one in the tiny tiny kitchen area. More attention to detail there, see? I was also impressed to find out that they deliberately make v.small batches of ?5? at a time to minimise waste at the end of the day and to make sure they are super-fresh. All in all, a very impressive and delicious donutty (doughnutty?) experience.
The only negative points I have are:
1- The peanut butter on top of the PB&J needs to have something else added to it to make it stick better - in a warm shop, it doesn't take long before it begins to separate and the disc of PB slip slides off in a one-er, making it tricky to get the full flavour combo experience.
2- it's a very, very small shop so not the best if you want a more discrete tete a tete, like when your friend has some pretty freakin' wild stuff to tell you
3- When they decided they wanted to shut up shop the people kind of stared at us from behind the til which was only about 3 ft away and made us feel a bit uncomfortable so we made a sharp exit. But then we noticed on the way out that they weren't closing for another couple of hours. So what was that about? Were they tired of listening to my friend's chat and my "whaaaaaaat?"s and just wanted us to leave, maybe? I dunno.
4- it is £2.40 for a donut. £2.40 for one single donut. Two pounds forty for a donut. A bit of me is outraged by that and points to the 6-for-a-quid that you get, still warm and turning the paper bag see-through with grease at the shows. Another bit of me points out how much better the Tantrum ones are than the 6-for-a-quid donuts. The same bit of me points out that you'd pay 3quid for a slice of cake in one of your fancy Byres rd cake emporia. And indeed that same bit of me just bought a creme brûlée donut and shoved it, whole, in the gub of the bit of me that was whining about the price because in actual fact, when you think about it, £2.40 isn't thaaaat bad for a donut. Eat up, whiney-face, this is the good stuff! read more