Win Free Stuff in Wendy's Contest

If you are able to amuse her more than any of her innumerable readers, Donut Homie Wendy Molyneux will give you free books. You heard it here first. Go give it your best shot.

What Was Inside the Giant Meat Piñata??

Starbucks Glazed Old Fashioned

It's a long story, but yesterday I found myself bouncing from one Starbucks to the next all over Manhattan in an attempt to get some work done in an air-conditioned environment. In the end I found the A/C inside just as oppressive as the heat outside and had to flee the coffee shop every hour or so and wander up Broadway in the intense humidity -- which at the time felt wonderfully refreshing -- and then pop into the next Starbucks once I'd regained feeling in my fingertips.

We know Starbucks is fond of very strong air conditioning, but I now realize that the overpowering A/C is actually the key to their profitability. The problem most coffee shops have is they don't get enough turnover. Some geek will walk in, spend a mere dollar, and then hog up a table for five hours. It's very hard to get the volume you need. To-go traffic helps, but unless you're in Midtown you really don't get much of that.

But just try to sit in the Starbucks A/C for five hours! It's like being in a wind tunnel. You might lose the tip of your nose to frostbite. It would be a miraculous feat of endurance to survive more than two hours there. Even 90 minutes in the Astor Place Starbucks would be a stunt worthy of David Blaine.

But at some point in my struggle against the man-made elements, I purchased and consumed a very delicious, very sugary, and profoundly unhealthy Starbucks glazed old fashioned. I don't think the photo does justice to the depth and milkiness of that glaze. There were pools of it. And you're free to hold your own opinion, but I'm no priss about glaze. A donut that is not glazed had better be dunked in some very good hot coffee; and if it's going to be glazed, it ought to be decadently glazed. This one fit the bill. And the donut cake inside was both dense and moist, and when you broke off a segment of the donut, it snapped off in a very satisfying way.

In addition to the old-fashioned ($1.25) and the infamous apple fritter ($1.75), Starbucks is also selling a brown, grainy, sugar-dusted donut they call the Chocolate Sandcastle. But this is where I draw the line. I don't eat anything with "sand" in its name.

Chicken Abs??

I meant to share this photo in the previous day's report. This is the awning of Super Pollo, a chicken joint in Sunset Park.












As you can see from the closeup, that's one musclebound chicken. (Those muscles didn't stop him from being cooked and eaten, though.) I've heard of chicken breast, chicken wings, even chicken feet -- but never chicken abs.

Sunset Park Diner & Donuts (Formerly 39th Street Donuts), 5th Ave. & 39th St., Brooklyn

Location: 889 5th Avenue

Subway: D/M/N/R to 36th St

Neighborhood: Sunset Park, Brooklyn. One of the nation's only half-Chinese, half-Latino neighborhoods, featuring a hilltop park with panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline, the MTA's Jackie Gleason Bus Depot, a slew of Chinatown bus lines and stores that sell nothing other than statues of the Virgin Mary.

My order: Jelly donut, chocolate glazed, French cruller, coffee.

Cost: $5.80, including $2 tip.

On the Web: www.sunsetparkdineranddonuts.com

I hope no one will take this the wrong way, but one of the most important rules I have in my life is never to live within sight of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Although many people did not realize it as they rushed to sign up for disco lessons in the late 1970s, the movie Saturday Night Fever is actually an incredibly bleak portrait of the world of Bay Ridge that struts and bickers and weeps quietly in the night at the foot of that bridge. There is a reason why the Verrazano was the site of the suicide at the climax of the picture.

But having said that, my obedience to that rule is always tested whenever I go down to Sunset Park. Here is a place where everywhere you turn, you come across another marvel -- bombed-out warehouses hulking over the Prospect Park Expressway overpass, sunny views of the whole of New York Harbor, elderly women shuffling nervously past the sprawling Green-Wood Cemetery, block after block of tin awnings, abandoned supper clubs from another era, and innumerable postage stamp-sized storefronts selling Spanish-language wedding cakes, live chickens, Vietnamese hoagies, salvaged car parts, acetylene tanks, goat tacos and, of course, freshly made donuts.

The clientele at Sunset Park Diner and Donuts (formerly 39th Street Donuts until the owner's children took over and renovated) consists predominately of MTA bus drivers coming to or from the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot down the street. Look them in the eye when they walk in -- maybe it will make them less likely to run you down later.

The donuts here are made on the premises daily and are pretty good. The jelly donut has a very generous amount of jelly in it and a pleasingly light consistency. The French cruller will cost you an extra 50 cents but it is not to be missed. It has a very thick, very tasty frosting and is shockingly moist.

Also, the place is incredibly clean and perhaps the only donut establishment in the city to feature new granite countertops. They run a tight ship. A waitress was reprimanded for arriving five minutes late. When a boy no older than ten years old slinked to the counter and told the manager, with genuine fear in his voice, that his mother had changed her mind and didn't want the bagel anymore, he was told it was too late too call it off.

"But she said she doesn't want it now," the boy said.

"Sorry, kid. It's too late. The girl wrote it down on the check," the manager said, waving the order pad for effect.

Although there is plenty of seating at the counter and in the booths, few people linger here. Most of the traffic is for to-go orders, and the staff gets antsy if you hang around too long. After I'd had my second cup of coffee and ordered my third donut -- and, OK, I will admit that I had started editing a set of 11 x 17 page proofs at the counter, which is probably not something often witnessed or tolerated at an outer-borough donut shop -- the waitress rolled her eyes and said, "Jeez, I can't wait to see what you'll have for lunch!" I took the hint and decamped.

The first thing I noticed upon leaving the donut shop was the Guadalupe II Deli, right across the street, bathed in a weirdly apt ray of mid-morning light.
















A few blocks later I was hiking up to the top of the park, which is more or less the dividing line in the neighborhood, with the Latino establishments to the west and Chinatown to the east. Dozens of families and senior citizens from each camp were congregated at the top of the hill to play soccer, to stage Asia vs. Latin America dominoes battles on sheets of cardboard and to practice tai chi. In addition to the tai chi group there was a handful of Chinese ladies of a certain age practicing their ballroom dancing to Mandarin pop tunes. Due to a complete lack of willing male partners, the ladies danced with each other.













"Slowly, slowly," one of the ladies said to her partner in Chinese. "Slowly, slowly."

NYC Donut Report!! will be returning to Sunset Park in the coming days to report on other local pastry and donut shops believed and rumored to exist in the neighborhood. At one point I was walking along the gate to the cemetery and, inexplicably, was engulfed in a cloud of jelly donut fumes. It was an unmistakable scent. There was no bakery in sight and I have no clue how the smell wafted to me. But I will not rest until I find out!!

NYC Donut Report's Got Beef with SCOTUS

If you love the quirky independent donut shops that we cover on this Web site, then you ought to detest the Supreme Court's refusal on Monday to take up the case of Brooklynites who are being forcibly evicted from their homes and businesses to make way for tacky high-rise condos. The court has now cleared the way for real-estate developers all over the city -- and indeed across the country -- to use the power of eminent domain not to build roads and other works that serve the public good, but instead to build condos, malls and office towers to make money.

The power of eminent domain, now used just to turn a profit. This ruling gives the developers yet another incredibly powerful weapon in their campaign to literally demolish all the homegrown donut shops, dive bars, corner bodegas, independent bookstores, hole-in-the-wall burger joints, art-house theaters, Chinese apothecaries, junk shops, wig emporiums, dumpling houses, Bulgarian discos, peep shows, Gray's Papaya hot dog joints, word-of-mouth supper clubs, cutthroat Korean ping-pong gyms, stinky fishmongers, brownstone stoops, rent-stabilized apartment buildings, chrome diners, kebob carts, basement barber shops, cramped jazz clubs, wholesalers of obscure items and taxidermy shops -- in short, to destroy all the things that make New York distinctive -- and replace them with condo developments and "festival marketplaces" you could just as easily find in Denver or Scottsdale.

The trends in Brooklyn are especially not good. The Coney Island that you and I know as one of the great symbols of Americana is about to be utterly sterilized. Acres and acres of gross condo towers are going up in the Atlantic Yards project that Antonin Scalia and his cronies are so enthused over. And what's the third big project going on in the borough? Why, it's funny you should ask. They're going to reopen -- and double the size of -- the Brooklyn House of Detention.

Shopping malls, million-dollar condos, overblown arenas for the New Jersey Nets to suck in, a massive prision smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood -- it's all the same to the developers. They all make money, and they all have no purpose but to make money.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against development per se and I'm not against making money per se. When I first moved to Brooklyn (after the debacle with my sublet in the Village), the structure on the corner of Atlantic and Court was an ugly concrete parking garage. Now it's a YMCA that is a boon to the whole community -- plus, yes, on the upper floors, luxury apartments. I think everyone is happy with how it's worked out. But I just don't see any of these other development projects offering the same benefits.

Thoughts? Unburden yourself in the comments.

We will be back with your normal donut reporting shortly.

Want To Be Cool? Read the Donut Homies!!

A lot of you have found yourself at this site through Blogs of Note. I'm so glad you're here!! But did you know that today's Blog of Note is none other than my official Donut Homie Wendy Molyneux? I strongly advise you to go over and visit her site, Fake Interviews with Real Celebrities. Then, if you really want to be cool, you should also get her smart and hilarious new book.

Today is a proud day for the Donut Homies. Which DH will blow up next? You should really check out all of the homies now so you can say you were into them before they were huge.

And now back to the donuts.

Courage!!

Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, Manhattan Avenue between Norman and Meserole, Brooklyn

Location: 727 Manhattan Avenue

Subway: G to Nassau Ave or G to Greenpoint Ave. If you want to hit all of the Manhattan Avenue Polish bakeries mentioned here -- and you'd be an idiot not to!! -- I suggest getting off at one station and eating/walking your way to the other.

Neighborhood: Greenpoint, NYC's No. 1 Polish enclave and heaven on earth for donut lovers.

My order: Marble curler, creme filled, coffee.

Cost: $4.80, including $2 tip.

One of my saddest days in this city was when The Old Homestead Inn, an extraordinary Polish dive bar on 1st Avenue and 6th Street, was closed down and replaced with a pseudo-Irish pub -- a detestable place whose name I will not mention here because this Web site is not in the business of rewarding criminals.

Simply put, The Old Homestead Inn was the greatest bar ever. Here was a place where you could crack open an oversized bottle of Zubr beer (pronounced "Joob") and sit elbow-to-elbow with elderly Polish men gambling away piles of balled-up cash on obscure games of chance. And when these card games inevitably degenerated into fistfights, the kind and charming 60-something lady who tended the bar would simply sigh and dry her hands on her apron before wading into the melee and removing the aged offenders from the premises (literally) by their ears. On a related occasion, your own international donut reporter was rescued by the same woman after a series of miscommunications in English, Polish and Japanese ended with an angrily intoxicated young man from Krakow trying his very best to pull off my nose.

So when readers burned up the Donut Tip Line this week to recommend Polish bakeries in Greenpoint, I was thrilled to jump on the G train to check them out.

If you get off the G train at the Nassau Ave station, your first stop as you walk up Manhattan Avenue will be the Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop, which many people say has the best donuts in New York City. They seem to be churning out donuts non-stop in the back room at Peter Pan -- you can see the men back there in white aprons, toiling in clouds of flour and powdered sugar, pulling the donuts from the oil on long skewers. And every few minutes another pretty young waitress in a turquoise-and-pink frock will emerge from the same clouds with a rack of hot, glistening donuts on her shoulder.

The donut scene at Peter Pan -- yes, it has a donut scene -- centers around a snaking, S-shaped counter that can seat about 20 people and takes up almost the entire interior. There was a merry buzz here. The young and old were there. A pasty man took his donuts with a giant glass of milk. Roommates scrolled through drunken party pictures. Someone kept trying to use the pay phone, oblivious to the sign that read PAY PHONE OUT OF ORDER! ONLY 911! The waitresses hustled back and forth, softly quibbling with each other in Polish, and a pale old man wearing enormous spectacles happily ogled them as they bent to retrieve ten-gallon bottles of Fox's Vanilla Syrup and reached for the frosted donuts with sprinkles up on the highest rack. "Hi, slim!" he called to one waitress, who playfully jabbed his shoulder. "Hey, kid," he said to the next girl, "you've lost weight!" Later, as another beauty passed, he undid the top two buttons of his well-worn tuxedo shirt, which had gone slightly pink in the wash, and gave her what I think was meant to be a provocative look.
















On my server's recommendation, I had a cup of very hot coffee (which needed sugar) and a dense and sweet marble curler -- a huge donut that was kind of like a long john on steroids and had a hint of maple syrup flavor. She also brought me a creme-filled that was very good. The creme was light and sweet and tasted of vanilla. One of my tipsters had claimed that Peter Pan made a donut frosted with marshmallow Fluff and sprinkles, but it wasn't available on this visit.

After Peter Pan, I stopped at a couple of Polish bakeries for paczki. Paczki (pronounced "punchky") are traditional Polish jelly donuts that are much lighter than the typical USA donut, perhaps closer to the texture of challah bread, with a sweet raspberry or lemon filling that is more of a syrup than a jelly.
















There are many Polish bakeries on Manhattan Avenue, but the two I tried were Bakery Rzeszowska (948 Manhattan Ave. at Java St.) and Old Poland Bakery (926 Manhattan Ave. at Kent St.) Of these two, the paczki at Rzeszowska were definitely superior. The bakery is a hole in the wall where any European-looking person will be addressed in Polish. When I responded in English, a daughter or niece with dyed hair and a lip ring was dragged in from the back to take my order. Even if there are no paczki in the racks up front, ask for them. In my case, they brought me one from the back that was still warm. I gobbled it up on the sidewalk -- the raspberry filling was piping hot and tasted like actual, fresh raspberries. The paczki at Rzeszowska are 75¢ each.

Later, I was even offered free donuts right on the street! However, I politely declined after it became clear to me that I would have to join some sort of storefront church or cult if I accepted the donuts. Also, they were just Dunkin' Donuts munchkins. Now, if they had offered me a hot lemon-filled paczki, I'd probably be happily going through some sort of initiation and brainwashing ceremony as we speak.

Downtown Brooklyn

Min's Donuts Closed for Renovations

Location: 319 9th Street (between 5th and 6th Aves.), Brooklyn

Subway: F/M/R to 4 Av - 9 St

Neighborhood: Park Slope. I am tempted to say "Park Slope," since it is far from what would have been considered the heart of the Slope even a few years ago. But these days the brokers will try to tell you that even the Green-Wood Cemetery is right in the heart of "Park Slope." Those lucky cadavers are lolling around under prime real estate!!

My order: Nothing.

Cost: $0

This was sad to see. I've been eager to try this place ever since I saw its charming sign through the window of a moving New York City bus.
















I wasn't the only person who was concerned. As I was trying to peek through gaps in the newspapers, a young round-faced boy tugged on his mother's sleeve and said, "Mommy! What happened?"

"Don't worry," she said. "They're just fixing it all up!"

Luckily for the rest of us -- although it won't do the little boy much good -- Jackie's 5th Amendment, which is truly one of the classic NYC dive bars, is just around the corner and remains open for business. Some of my readers know all too well that the bartender at Jackie's will serve you a six-pack of Bud Light on ice in a novelty metal pail for the ridiculously low price of, I believe, $6. As a free bonus, if you are there with any pretty girls he will also tell you numerous disturbing lies about his supposedly dead wife, the eponymous Jackie herself, who is in fact very much alive. (Either that or she's a very opaque ghost.)
















And after you've worked up your courage at Jackie's, why not stumble a few doors down 5th Avenue for some bingo? Come on, you know you want to!!
















Watch this space for more updates on the Min's renovation. See you at the bingo hall!!

Krispy Kremes Made, Then Desecrated

I think one reason why Krispy Kreme has struggled in NYC -- and is in fact dying out here -- is that they failed to bring over most of the theatrics that make the franchise so popular in the South. There was no massive red light mounted atop the building to alert you when the next batch of hot donuts was ready. You couldn't see the donuts being made on the premises behind a glass partition, or at least you sure can't at the Penn Station location.

Why didn't they start with a huge KK in Times Square with all of this stagecraft and then some? Why not replace the huge steaming Cup Noodle with a gigantic neon sign and foghorn reading "HOT DONUTS NOW!!"??

Maybe they did try this at the two now-defunct locations, in which case all is lost. But I recall nothing of the sort and am inclined to think that they just blew it here.

Anyway, here are some Krispy Kreme videos. The first shows chocolate frosted donuts being made at a Krispy Kreme in South Carolina. The maker of the second video has blocked embedding for some reason, but the link is below. It shows a very misguided person frying day-old KK donuts, and really frying them to death. Is this a thing? When you see this, I guess either you'll think, "Mmm!" or you'll tremble with anger.


Link to refried donuts video

The Four Horsemen

That's right: KFC, Nathan's, Dunkin' Donuts and Pizza Hut, all under one roof. And no, there is not a cavernous suburban mall-style food court in there, but rather a storefront the size of a large elevator with very little seating, if any.

I have to say, though, that the hand-painted mural out front almost redeems the place. In my mind it is practically a landmark.
















Yes, that is an anthropomorphic Styrofoam cup straddling a seaborne hot dog as a Dunkin' Donuts coffee and its disproportionately-sized pizza pal lounge in the sand while being fanned by a gigantic lemon slave. It's actually just an only slightly fanciful rendering of what washes up on the beach at Coney Island every day.

As always, for reasons of national security I am not publishing the location of this place.

Remembrance of Donuts Past: Coffee Cart, Broadway near 19th St., Spring 2002

Many years ago my girlfriend and I sublet an apartment from a woman who will have to remain nameless, but I can tell you that she was a hard-charging movie producer who had already basically relocated to L.A. However, the woman still wanted to hang onto her place in the Village -- it was a rent-stabilized 1-BR on 9th and University which contained an entire wall of black-and-white photographs of hairy men's backs, an enormous collection of pretentious hats, a sleeper sofa full of mouse droppings and, in the bathroom, two entire drawers filled to the brim with sleeping pills.

But I have to say it was a gorgeous apartment at an excellent price. Now, I know that people in New York can have an annoying habit of gloating about their real-estate conquests. I once spent an evening listening to a distant relative of mine recount the Manhattan palaces she'd scored in the 1970s and 1980s; she ended her description of each place by naming an act of violence I would have done to her if I'd seen the place, as in, "A duplex on 12th Street! You would have killed me!" Then, later, "A two-bedroom condo on Sutton Place! I had my own framer! You would have kicked my teeth in!"

But having said that, I really have to tell you that if you'd seen this apartment, with its wall of sunny French windows opening onto a placid, tree-filled courtyard, you might have contemplated giving me a vigorous purple nurple, or perhaps jabbing me in the gut with a stick.

Of course, as happens with all sublets, everything fell apart. The landlord caught on. He was a persistent, crafty man who knew that if he kicked us out he could slap on a new coat of paint and double the rent. Phone calls were made in the middle of the night. Neighbors and private dicks were enlisted to spy on us. Threatening letters and legal notices were nailed to the door. There was one memorable phone call where he asked me how much we were paying the movie producer to live there.

"Gee," I said, "I don't know."

"You don't know how much rent you pay?"

"Of course I don't know. Why would I know that?"

Later, the determined old man would leave message after message on our answering machine, breathing heavily and saying, "This is [name redacted] . . . I know you're living there . . . I know you're in there . . ."

Clearly, it was time to look for a new place. And this was really before the emergence of craigslist.org or other places to look online -- in those days the thing to do was to wake up early on a Wednesday morning, when the Village Voice was just coming out, and try to be the first to call in to the very rare apartment listing placed in that publication that was not an outright lie.

Now, in those days I walked from 9th Street up to my workplace in Midtown. So I'd start out early on a Wednesday and grab a Voice from the newspaper box near Madison Square Park. On the way, I'd stop at a coffee cart on the west side of Broadway, near the movie theater at 19th Street, and get a small coffee with cream and sugar and a chocolate glazed donut. Whenever I didn't have the WALK signal -- and most of the signals in NYC still said WALK and DON'T WALK back in those days -- I would stand at the corner and peruse the apartment ads, searching in vain for something acceptable.

I had half a mind to throw myself into an oncoming bus. If you've ever had to find an apartment in this city, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So many ads full of lies, so many weasel words, so many thoroughly unreliable brokers. I remember one broker, a gentleman named "Spyder," who was peddling all sorts of nonexistent apartments and never did arrive at any of the places he directed me to. There was the very nice young Israeli man who spent an afternoon taking us to one building after another, only to discover each time that he didn't have the keys to the front door. There was the middle-aged Long Island woman who pulled up in a VW Bug in the pouring rain, a couple of poodles leaping about in her lap, and rolled down the window and flung the keys at us. "Take it or leave it!" she cried.

My only solace in those days was that coffee cart chocolate glazed. I do not know where this donut was made, and I wish I'd asked the nice Middle Eastern man in traditional clothing who ran the cart. I remember the glaze was thick and crusty and extra-sweet. The donut meat itself was moist and rich. And of course, once you've added the sugar to your coffee cart coffee, you simply can't go wrong.

Eventually we crossed paths with a wonderful broker in Brooklyn, a kind and patient Irish man who took us from place to place by taxi. His commission was worth every penny. Not only did he find us a great place -- where we stayed for over five years -- but he spent hours on the phone convincing the landlords to take us on.

I never found out what happened to the coffee cart.

Another NYC Donut Report!! Scoop

One of our commenters says that the Court Street Donut House has relented and brought back the donuts. I have not verified this personally and I don't know if the donuts will be back permanently. I'd like to believe this report and our readers had something to do with their change of heart.

Some Useful Information about the NYPL

Currently the schedule posted on the New York Public Library's Web site is wrong. The hours of operation given on their phone line and on the sign in front of the main branch are also wrong.

During the summer, the main branch on 42nd and 5th is closed on Sundays. However, for the summer, the mid-Manhattan branch on 40th and 5th will be open from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. This is little consolation, though. While the main branch is a glorious monument to democracy and learning, the mid-Manhattan branch is like the Port Authority with books.

The Unholy Alliance

Why, God, why?

I'm not even going to print the location where this photo was taken. Someone has to protect us from ourselves. Anyway, what would be the point? Wherever there is a DD franchise in this city, Yum! Brands, Inc. and Dunkin' Brands, Inc. have merged it with a KFC (or Taco Bell, or Nathan's, etc.) anyway.

Don't get me wrong. I love KFC. And Dunkin' Donuts is good too. But why together? Is anyone ever torn between donuts and a bucket of fried chicken? Do people out in groups really find themselves at loggerheads because someone wants popcorn chicken and someone else craves Bavarian creme?

Also, I don't even want to think about evaporated chicken-fryer grease settling over those pure, soft, sugar-snowy donuts.

Donut House, Jay St. & Willoughby St., Brooklyn

Location: 387 Jay St.

Subway: A/C/F to Jay St.

Neighborhood: Downtown Brooklyn, the last vestige of gritty, dilapidated 1970s-era NYC left within striking distance of Manhattan. A miasma of deep-fryer grease fumes wafting over a sea of 99¢ stores, driving schools, dodgy accounting offices, purveyors of discounted electronics of questionable provenance, cell phone emporiums presided over by outrageously loud and persistent barkers, hair weave joints, Kennedy Fried Chicken franchises, a very downmarket Macy's and the Brooklyn Supreme Court.

My order: French cruller, toasted coconut, coffee

Cost: $4.65, including $2 tip.

Downtown Brooklyn is a thing unto itself. Most people here are either government workers, off-duty EMTs, victims of a generations-long cycle of poverty and injustice, would-be hipsters who are trying way too hard or, of course, poor souls who have been summoned for jury duty. While waves of gentrification wash over the rest of the city, downtown Brooklyn seems only to get grittier, noisier and more run down. Whether you cheer that or lament that is up to you.

Now this Donut House is not to be confused with that other Donut House on Court Street which, as we recently told you in a NYC Donut Report!! Exclusive Exposé, does not actually serve donuts. On the contrary, the donuts here are made fresh daily in the pre-dawn hours in the donut fryer in a back room and are then arrayed up front on a rack whose labels are full of some of the best truncations and misprints in the donut industry, including:

OLD FASHION
CHOCO FROST
TOASTED COCNUT

On the advice of the manager, I ordered the French cruller -- which was enormous, yet light and sweet, and was truly an A+ cruller -- and the aforementioned toasted coconut, which seemed to have been a typical frosted coconut donut run through a bagel toaster. Stick to the cruller.
















As for ambience, Donut House is exactly what you should expect when you find yourself in downtown Brooklyn. Everything from the rickety stools to the faded butterfly stencils on the front windows was in disrepair. Most of the clientele seemed too sleepy to notice, or perhaps too caught up in their own mutterings.

In short, the Jay Street Donut House is perhaps NYC's only true donut dive. It makes 7th Avenue Donuts look like a charming Left Bank cafe, and it makes The Donut Pub look like the Four Seasons.

The staff members were all Spanish-speakers working cheek to jowl in very close quarters. They seemed to genuinely despise one another -- either that or some of them happened to be named chinga, puta, and bendejo -- and at one point there was a great clattering and a couple of them nearly came to blows. Meanwhile, the angry elderly woman sitting beside me shouted at them, yet again, that she had ordered an iced coffee, not a hot coffee. One of the guys hurried over to her, looking very apologetic, and handed her (again) a hot coffee.

"What is this? Am I not speaking English?" she asked.

"Sorry, what you order, lady?"

"Ice coffee. Ice coffee. Just take this coffee and put an ice cube in it."

She is probably still sitting there now.

Downtown Brooklyn, people. See it while it's still standing!!

Donut Report for the Shut-Ins: Entenmann's Frosted Softee™ Donuts

Purchased at: Rite Aid Pharmacy, Court St. & Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn

Cost: $3.49 for the 12-pack

I know that some people -- let's call them "haters" -- say the Entenmann's donuts are waxy, mass-produced shite. Well, with all due respect, I don't care what they say. And neither should you. The Entenmann's frosted donut is one of the main reasons why it is still good to be alive in this blighted era of recent American history.

BUT -- you must refrigerate them first!!

When the Entenmann's frosted donut is well refrigerated, the chocolate frosting hardens into a delightful crust not unlike the chocolate crust over a properly prepared dipped ice-cream cone. It is a pleasure to bite into it. And the spongy yellow cake inside is not bad for a factory donut.

Unfortunately, the Rite Aid (where I purposely went because it is near my gym and I had seen the donuts deeply discounted there a few days ago) did not carry the box of frosted mini-donuts. That is what you should look for. I ended up with the assorted pack. Now, the plain and powdered sugar donuts in there are OK, but only just OK, and I would trade them all in a heartbeat to have even one more chocolate frosted waiting in my icebox.

No Small Parts, Only Small Donuts!!

Not everybody knows this, but my donut homies Andy and Carolyn London (aka Londonsquared Productions) let me appear in one of their hilarious short films. Follow the link and hunt for it, people!! I am on screen briefly, but I am there.

I am stuck at home today waiting for various deliveries, but in a few minutes I will be bringing you a very special Donut Report for the Shut-Ins.

Courage!!

The Donut Pub After Dark

I didn't know I knew the conceptual media artist known as [sic], but it turns out I do. And he just sent me this photo. You may not be able to tell when the picture is reduced to this size, but inside The Donut Pub are many drunk people.

Today's NYC Donut Report!! Scoop

Pies N Thighs, which was reputed to make some of the best donuts in NYC, has closed. The closure was not entirely for "health reasons," as has been rumored in some quarters. Instead, they are planning to reopen in another location soon -- reportedly still in Williamsburg at South 4th Street and Driggs. The reopening is supposed to happen this summer.

Thanks for the tips, people!!

Tipsters are the lifeblood of any journalistic enterprise, and international donut reporting is no different. I haven't read through all of the comments on the site yet, but so far I've noticed a lot of donut suggestions that I am eager to pursue. Thank you!!

In return, I have a reading suggestion: A Tale of Two Cities, Book 2, Ch. 1-3. I started reading this run of chapters on the Q train yesterday afternoon and got so engrossed I nearly missed my stop. Dickens is the greatest observer of human folly. And he writes these sentences that, at first, seem meandering and verbose, but are actually pulled taut with irony and wit.

Now, back to the donuts!!

Zaro's, Grand Central Station

Location: Grand Central Station, just off the main concourse

Subway: 4/5/6/7 to Grand Central

Neighborhood: Midtown. Where the elite go to be miserable.

My order: Almond chocolate donut, coffee

Cost: $2.40

Because I am too cheap to run the A/C during this interminable heat wave, I've been spending my days at the reading room in the New York Public Library. The NYPL has great air-conditioning -- in fact, I strongly advise you to bring a sweater, even on a 100-degree day like today -- and there is no better way to experience New York than to take the 4 train up to Grand Central, grab something from Zaro's, stroll through the glorious main concourse and then head over to the NYPL. Don't forget to look up from your book every few minutes and gaze at the library's ornate ceiling and high, light-filled windows. And breathe in that smell of books!

The NYPL reading room is also a great people-watching site. The place is loaded with classic New York characters: crusty writers poring over the massive dictionaries, packs of slack-jawed tourists, pickup artists, anguished ABD grad students, the clinically insane, innumerable foreign exchange students and, perhaps surprisingly, more beautiful people than you can count.

But before you reach the NYPL, you'll want to stop off at Zaro's. If you're in the main concourse, just walk toward the stairs that lead to Metrazur and veer left. It's a hole in the wall. If you get lost, just keep looking. Do not succumb to the Hot and Crusty down the way.

The item I purchased was referred to by both me and the staff as a "donut," but once I tasted it I realized it was probably more like an almond horn. The texture is a pastry texture -- rich and multi-layered, with the flaky outside giving way to dense and chewy innards. It was damn good. But how could it not taste good when you're eating it there in the happy buzz of Grand Central, under the winking lights in the ceiling?

Life is good, people!!

Thanks, Blogs of Note!!

I don't know how Blogs of Note found me since this site is normally visited only by my ever-dwindling number of friends, people looking for a pervy-sounding chat line and possibly my mom, although I'm not sure she ever clicked on the link I sent her. Anyway, thanks!!

Remembrance of Donuts Past: Mansion Diner Jelly Donut, 9/12/01

Everyone likes to slag off the Upper East Side -- and really, who can blame them? -- but you have to admit it has a very high concentration of diners, perhaps the highest in the entire city, and lots of them are very good. This fact alone almost makes up for the rest of the neighborhood's faults: the overcrowded 6 train; the innumerable "REAL 2BR!!" apartments that are clearly converted studios; the charmless and soiled white-brick apartment towers from which emerge disoriented elderly women walking their skittish, piss-spraying mop-dogs; the frat-friendly sidewalk cafes spilling over with smug, backward-hatted goons; lost tourists who can neither find nor pronounce the Guggenheim; and of course the string of chicken joints and chain bakeries around the 86th St. station with names like "Hot and Crusty," "Flaming Embers" and "Chirping Chicken" that are crimes against both cuisine and the rules of English usage.

There used to be a time (and I think we all know exactly when this time ended) that you could be in polite company and say something to the effect of, "That entire neighborhood should be knocked down and/or blown up!!" and your companions would nod in emphatic agreement.

But I digress. Despite its crimes, the UES has undeniably great diners, the best of which might be the Mansion Diner on York and 86th, and what makes the Mansion so great is not only their big and juicy cheeseburgers but also the enormous jelly donuts they keep on the front counter under a glass dome. Perhaps the curvature of the glass distorts my perception of things, but I do not think it is exaggerating much to say that those jelly donuts are the size of throw pillows.

Before they renovated a few years ago, the walls inside the Mansion were covered with endearingly tacky mirrors, so when you first entered the joint you would think, "Wow, look at that donut! And that one... and that one...!" ad infinitum. Every time I walked into the Mansion, I'd imagine myself going to work on one of those donuts -- it would probably take up a whole platter, and I'd need a fork and a knife, plus maybe one of those lobster bibs to catch those stupendous strawberry jelly dribs -- and I would vow to save room for desert. But then, of course, I would go ahead and gorge myself to the bursting point on the cheeseburger deluxe, leaving no room for the donut. And after leaving the tip, I'd walk out through the Hall of Donuts berating myself. Next time! Next time!

Next time finally came on the morning after The Day That Changed Everything. I was living on 9th Street at the time, and everything was fine ("fine" being a relative term in these circumstances) until the wind shifted and the apartment filled up with unbearable fumes. I ended up in the Upper East Side through some combination of fear, shock, the longing for comfort, and simple expedience (the person I was staying with until the fumes cleared lived up there). Naturally, that same psychology led me to the Mansion.

It was a weird day. The whole world was going to hell, but hey -- you got a free Wednesday off work and the mayor was pleading for everyone to save America by going out and buying a bunch of crap. My sense of everything was way off. Those white-brick monstrosities suddenly seemed inoffensive. And perhaps there were even worse fates in the world than being allowed to live another day in a city that allows an eatery like Hot and Crusty not only to name itself after what sound like the symptoms of a venereal disease but to actually thrive and grow into a chain. We were still alive, all of us! What terrible good luck!

I was propelled through that brunch by patriotic gluttony. After downing several cups of strong coffee I plowed through a complete "Lumberjack Special" -- three enormous pancakes, three scrambled eggs, white toast with butter and jam, heaps of home fries, and a side plate piled with bacon, sausage, and ham. I heard myself, with my mouth crammed full of gnashed meat, saying awful things like, "You're either with us or against us!!" and "Now they'll see what happens when you mess with America!!" In my mind I was already picking out a pair of new sneakers.

That was the person I was when I finally had the Mansion diner donut. It was a divine donut. When I slashed open the donut flesh with my greasy sausage knife, the jelly flowed freely. I can still remember how cold that jelly tasted. I remember the sweetness of the powdered sugar on the tip of my tongue.

I did not deserve that donut. I would like to go back to the Mansion and try it again -- this time with a clear mind, without greed or fear or resentment or empty scorn -- but things are not so simple now. The Mansion has been renovated. The mirrored walls are gone. The booths are no longer so commodious. They used to have those amazing old-fashioned after-dinner mints that you had to fish out of the bowl with a plastic spoon -- you know, those chalky white mints with the colored blobs inside of them -- but those are now just a memory. And although others have sworn to me that the donuts are still there under the glass dome, when I visited last year the dome was empty.

The burgers are still great, though.

Free Donuts at Penn Station Krispy Kreme Today!!

It's on, people!!

Just got off the phone with Krispy Kreme at Penn Station. To celebrate National Donut Day, which is today, they will give you one free donut.

One donut per person, today only. This is totally for real.

See you there!!

Update: I've just returned from Penn Station and I can assure you the donut giveaway is really happening, although Krispy Kreme isn't advertising or promoting it in any way. I'd also forgotten how delicious those donuts are. Their glazes are as sweet and gooey as the laws of science allow. When you're eating one it's like you know you're engaging in something wrong and unhealthy and ultimately self-destructive, but it feels so good that you just don't care. If you've never had a Krispy Kreme lemon filled, run to Penn Station immediately!!

Happy National Donut Day!!

I know it's obvious from all the donut parades going on today. Or perhaps half of your work unit has called in sick this morning with the suspicious hiss of donut fryers in the background. And of course I'm sure your small children (if you have small children) awoke well before dawn this morning and giddily raced to the back porch to see what The Donut Elf left in their helmets.

But yes, people, in case you missed all the signs, today is National Donut Day.

In a few minutes I will be heading to Penn Station, home of the last surviving Krispy Kreme franchise in NYC, to investigate a rumor that they are giving out free donuts today.

Stay tuned!!

Cupcake Cafe, 18th Street between 5th and 6th Aves.

Location: 18 W. 18th Street

Subway: 4/5/6/N/R/Q/W/L to Union Square, F to 14th St

Neighborhood: Union Square/Flatiron

My order: Sweet potato glazed, coffee

Cost: $3.25

As I was walking down 18th Street to get to Cupcake Cafe, I passed a mob of wailing stroller-bound infants and their imported caregivers lined up outside the Books of Wonder children's bookstore. I thought to myself, "Thank goodness I have nothing to do with that!!" So imagine my surprise when I passed under the giant pink cupcake hanging over the front entrance to the cafe and realized the it was in fact located inside Books of Wonder.

Many important things flow from that fact, starting with the decor. The DayGlo cupcake motifs, the vintage flowered upholstery, the frilly stencils and other precious touches all make this place the perfect setting for a child's pretend tea party, except in this case it's all too real.

Although Books of Wonder still hadn't opened for the day's business, a stylish mom and her au pair had already sneaked in through the bakery side. They dangled a succession of flashing baby gizmos over a double-wide stroller in a vain attempt to placate the fussy toddler lounging within it. The au pair cooed at the boy in English and French while his mother tapped away at a Blackberry. I never did see a second occupant of the double-wide, so I guess the little boy got it all to himself.

The guys working the counter were happily out of place, a couple of scruffy and bright-eyed NYU students (I surmised) who aggressively promoted the peach pie. And they were pros at upselling -- when I couldn't decide between the sweet potato glazed and the chocolate glazed, the guys chirped, "Get them both!"

Anyway, the sweet potato donuts are Cupcake Cafe's claim to fame in the donut industry. And I am happy to say that they are very good. The sweet potato somehow makes them taste heartier, even more wholesome, and one of these very large donuts will easily fill you up. They also serve good coffee here, and despite the child commotion all around me I found myself settling into the place. Before long the enfant terrible had piped down and I was engrossed in my book as I soaked up the rainy morning sunlight.

I should probably also mention that Cupcake Cafe is really more about cupcakes than donuts. I don't really follow cupcakes, but my understanding is that the cupcake craze has passed. Perhaps the Sex and the City movie will temporarily revive it. In the meantime, dozens of brightly-frosted cupcakes await you on 18th Street. If you hurry, you might be able to get a slice of that peach pie, too.

Today's Must-Read: NY Times Ridealong with Municipal Pooper-Scooper Enforcement Officer

You all know that from time to time I pass along newspaper article recommendations because good reading is an essential component of the donut lifestyle. Today's New York Times has a good one in the Metro section about an official squad that actually patrols the city looking for people who don't pick up after their dogs. Check it out here.

But the unanswered question is where you toss the poop. According to the article, the same officers will fine you $200 for throwing "household garbage" in a city trash can. Is dog poop household garbage? It's produced by a household member, after all. So that just leaves you with other buildings' trash cans, which seems a little rude. Plus I have been noticing more and more trash cans around town that have been marked, with large angry letters, NO POOP!!

We can only hope the Times covers this in a follow-up piece.

Update: Here's a case in point. "NO DOG DOO" is like the new "NO MENUS."

Developing Bagel Story

I don't ordinarily cover bagels -- or Los Angeles -- but someone who does has made a horrifying discovery. Consider yourselves warned, people!!

Are We All Cool Or What??

My friend Alison Rosen is a real reporter (not that I'm not) and can be seen on TV. She went on Hannity and Colmes and lived!! Anyway, this makes me practically a TV personality by association, and you can be too when you visit her site.

Cafe Zaiya, 41st Street between Madison and Fifth

Location: 18 E. 41st Street

Subway: 4/5/6 to Grand Central, or 7 to 5 Avenue - Bryant Park

Neighborhood: Midtown, steps from the New York Public Library main branch.

My order: Choco-mochi donut (above), an donut (not a misprint; see below), twisty donut

Cost: $4.20

The block of 41st Street between 5th and Madison is the place where Japanese housewives stop for a post-shopping snack before taking the Metro-North back to Westchester. What they do back in Westchester is anyone's guess. They are only here temporarily, living in a luxurious but also probably deathly boring expat bubble, until their salarymen husbands are transferred back to Japan. And because this block is so close to the New York Public Library, these nice, idle ladies also come face to face with younger versions of themselves -- hip, carefree, laughing twentysomething exchange students in the latest styles from Shibuya and Harajuku, electronic dictionaries in hand, who have come to the library to study their English.

It must be a bittersweet sight for the housewives. They generally speak no English. They probably just sit up there in Westchester and look at the wall, TiVo-ing the daily 60 minutes of Japanese programming you get on American cable, and counting the hours until the next train down to Bergdorf's and Takashimaya. They, too, know why the caged bird sings.

But none of this has to be your problem. You're just here for the donuts.

Walking toward Madison from the library, you've got Book-Off at 14 E. 41st, followed by Cafe Zaiya at 18 E. 41st, then a budget grocery store/restaurant called Yagura at No. 24. Of these three, Yagura is hands-down the place to go for a cheap but delicious Japanese lunch. (I recommend the curry with tonkatsu.) Book-Off is where you go if you can actually read a book in Japanese, and Cafe Zaiya is the upscale choice for green-tea soft serve ice cream, Japanese pastries, "Beard Papa" (a fried cream puff that, although delicious, is like injecting lard directly into your heart), and of course the Japanese donuts.

If you only get one donut here, you are well advised to go for the "an donut" -- an is Japanese for sweet red bean paste, which is exactly what you'll find in this donut.





























The photos don't really do it justice. The outside of the donut is plump and sweet, dusted with chunky grains of sugar. Inside is a very generous portion of an -- the donut-to-filling ratio is much more satisfactory here than it is for most American jelly donuts.

It's sad that the an donut, which is a staple in bakeries in Japan, is extremely hard to find here, even in New York. They also have it at Panya in the East Village, and I think I've stumbled across it in bakeries in Chinatown. But just try ordering it at Dunkin' Donuts.

While the twisty donut was forgettable -- too chewy and bland -- the choco-mochi was also great. Mochi is a chewy, rice-based sweet that is not usually found in donut form. Zaiya seems to have braided regular mochi and then deep fried it, and then finally covered half of the donut with a very generous coating of rich chocolate. It could have been a little less greasy, but it was still a fun one to try.

And also, if anyone is giving out Brave Choice Awards in donut photojournalism, I think I deserve one for getting these donut shots. The minute I took out the camera (the fancy new cell phone still hasn't arrived), a housewife sitting next to me said to her friend, "Ehhhhhh?" This is the universal expression of surprise in Japan, said with an interminably rising intonation, and after a year teaching in the Nagoya suburbs it is hard-wired in my nervous system to a fight-or-flight reflex (invariably flight). Her friend then said in Japanese, "He is strange." And then, when I started to photograph the half-eaten an donut (which I admit I felt a little strange about myself), the first housewife exclaimed, "Nan de!!" which literally means "Why?" but is basically Japanese for "What the fuck??"

But yet! I persevered!

I wonder what happened to those ladies after they finished their green-tea ice cream cones and boarded the train back to White Plains or Chappaqua or wherever it is that they've been stationed. Despite their comments, they seemed nice. I hope the episode gave them a few minutes' reprieve from the awful dullness of being a temporary foreigner.

Night and Day

About a year ago my girlfriend happened to be in Wallingford, CT and bought me a shirt that says "CHOATE SUPER FAN" so that I can pretend to be an alum of the prestigious boarding school. And although I still hope to one day get the better of some gullible prep school jerk, ideally cadging free drinks from the sucker, in the end I always chicken out whenever someone stops me and asks, "Hey, did you go to Choate, too?"

So today I was on 35th and 5th Avenue when a rotund older man wearing "jam" shorts and a nylon windbreaker with no shirt underneath suddenly stopped me on the sidewalk. "Phillips Exeter!" he shouted. I must have looked confused because he pointed at my chest and clarified his remark. "You're a Choate man! And I'm Phillips Exeter!"

"Actually, to be honest, I didn't go to Choate."

"Which one did you go to then?"

I explained that I didn't really go to any of them, mumbling something about a small town in the Midwest. The man listened and slicked back his hair -- he looked kind of like how Santa Claus would look if Santa was from the Bronx and wasn't above knocking back a few shots at noon on a Monday.

"Well I'm an Exeter man. Great experience. Loved every minute of it," he said.

"OK."

"Homosexual acts night and day! Taking it up the rear and giving it up the rear!"

"Good for you," I said.

"Loved every minute of it!"

It is definitely summer in NYC now.

DIY Donuts

You may think donut-making should be left to the professionals or to complicated machines with conveyor belts and boiling oil flumes and menacing jelly-injector prongs. Or at least you'd have to be an overachieving Martha Stewart type to try to make your own donuts at home, probably as part of some futile and neurotic struggle to fill that empty place in your soul. Right?

Well, don't tell it to the man in this video. He's making donuts in an instant with little more than tupperware, bottle caps, instant biscuits, granulated sugar and American know-how. I personally am a bit skeptical that this can really work, but please watch and judge for yourself.

The NY Donut?? The Brooklyn Raven??

Don't be freaked out, people, but from time to time Google/Blogger gives me a list of search queries that lead visitors to this site. Usually the keywords are about what you'd expect: some variation on "good NY donuts" or "where is the donut pub?"

But recently a bunch of visitors have come looking for something called "NY donut hot line" or "NY donut chat line." And I initially thought this might be some kind of number you call to get the scoop on where to find good donuts, or perhaps to exchange donut scuttlebutt. After a little research, however, I saw that I was being very naive -- suddenly the phrase "donut chat line" sounded incredibly lewd. And yet it is still not totally clear to me what is going on here. This MySpace page (probably NSFW, all things considered) sheds only the dimmest of lights on the question.

The subject has also come up repeatedly on Yahoo! Answers, where we learn that the "NY Donut" chat line has an outer-borough counterpart, "The Brooklyn Raven." One of the Yahoo! Answers members helpfully explains:

THE NEW YORK DONUT AND THE BROOKLYN RAVEN IS A CHATLINE WHERE U CALL AND U COULD CONNECT TO SPEAK TO ANYONE U LIKE ALL TYPE OF THINGS. THE NUMBER IS 718 xxx-xxxx U CULD EVEN TALK TO PEOPLE FOR THE UK, ISNT HOT.

There's also this very abbreviated blog, which provides almost no comprehensible information but certainly implies that there is a weird, mysterious, secret world of drama going on right under our noses.

I guess I could solve the mystery by picking up the phone and calling the hotline, but remember, I am a coward. And for the same reason I'm not revealing the phone number here. But if any reader dares to look up and call that number, please enlighten us all by leaving a narrative in the comments.
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