alliteration would be taking it much too far
So Dunkin' Donuts is building LEED-certified buildings, huh? With earthworm composting for the waste material? Fascinating. As a longtime veteran of the Donut Wars (Immobile Assault Division), my first instinct is to add this to the tally and see how Dunkin' — the hated foe of me and my fellow partisans — now stacks up against my beloved Krispy Kreme.
Here's the updated pro-Dunkin' list, which I present in the spirit of temperate objectivity:
- Ubiquity
- Distinctly uncoffeelike coffee (that is still strangely compelling)
- Has now broken with the donut industry's rapaciously anti-environmental past, apparently
I may be missing a few points. But what is not on this list — what is never on the list — is "excellent donuts". It's a bit mystifying to me, even after speaking to Matt and Michael about it at length. Dunkin' Donuts seems to be this store that Northeasterners like to get coffee from in the morning. It happens to have the word "donut" in its name, and yeah, if you ask for a donut they probably have some in the back.
But — with the exception of the cake donut perverts, who frankly should be rounded up and hospitalized — I've never heard anyone defend Dunkin's donuts on the merits. Stacking the franchise up against Krispy Kreme is therefore bizarre, like saying McDonald's is better than a steakhouse because the latter doesn't keep a plastic slide out front. If you want to make a comparison based on the crucial "has a fun slide" metric, it should be between McDonald's and, say, a waterpark. Or, to bring the analogy home, between Dunkin' Donuts and a real coffeeshop. Instead the Dunkin' bullies choose to pick on poor Krispy Kreme (too busy making excellent donuts to defend itself!), rather than take on the coffeeshops that would surely spell their rhetorical doom.
But I won't belabor the point. By now I can see that I'm on the wrong side of history (it's something of a family tradition). But those of us who truly love our donuts will keep the faith, and wait patiently for the day when Real Americans are ready to emerge from behind the silence of the glaze curtain and cry Hot Donuts... NOW!
Comments
Here's the thing about the DD coffee. It's mediocre coffee, but it is EXTREMELY fresh. And that, more than anything else, makes it superior to almost any other coffee storefront, including Starbucks (who as I far as I can tell serve about four cups of stale coffee a day--the rest is Mochafrappalattes).
Also--"donut"? Really? I assumed we'd be on the same prescriptivist page about the need for preserving "doughnut" as the preferred spelling. Maybe this isn't going to work out, Tom.
Doughnut? DOUGHNUT? What is this, Arthurian England? We're not shaping crude rings from millet paste and frying them in the candle tallow tun, you know. You might as well go all the way and throw in a hyphen.
When fried dough has reached a form this refined, it deserves a new start, and a new name -- one unfettered by the histories and implications of its compound word components. DONUT.
Besides, you don't even like donuts.
Family tradition or not, there exists only a small chance that your citizenship will be revoked over this matter. But it still may take another 110 years to get it restored.
I think Dunkin' Donuts has excellent donuts. There you go. Now you have heard someone say it.
The Boston Cremes are totally sweet. And the Butternut covered donuts are the best to dip into nice hot coffee (even though it leaves butternut bits at the bottom of your cup).
And here is another item for you that they excel at: bagels. They are not the most amazing bagels in the world, but they are fluffy, fresh, and available outside of NY/NJ and at all times of day.
However, if you just want a hot ring-shaped serving of sugar and starch, by all means head to a Krispy Kreme.
However, if you just want a hot ring-shaped serving of sugar and starch, by all means head to a Krispy Kreme.
Yes! You're describing a donut! I want a donut!
DD's boston cremes are good, but then what wouldn't be good if you covered it in chocolate and shot it full of custard?
And here is another item for you that they excel at: bagels.... they are fluffy
FAIL.
LizardBreath: "FAIL."
Ah, so you are a fan of those dense bagels that make you strain your teeth when you take a bite?
Yes. That sort of bagel is technically known as a "bagel". People seem to enjoy buying toroidal rolls, and referring to them as bagels, but this is a misuse of the term.
Yes! You're describing a donut! I want a donut!
A doughnut is fried dough. The classic Krispy Kreme is no kind of doughnut.
Their glazed chocolate doughnuts are good, though.
Didn't the end of trans-fats mean the end of the classic Krispy Kreme donut as such? Has anyone actually tried the no-trans-fat version? Assuming there is such a thing?
Hmm. That's a good point, mealworm. I've had some relatively recently, but I'm not sure if they had trans-fat or not.
But there are two advantages to trans-fats, right? They doesn't go rancid very fast and they're solid at room temperature, allowing for things like permanently chewy cookies. I think the former probably only matters to KK's bottom line, and the latter probably doesn't have much of an effect on the donut's texture -- whatever solidification is necessary seems likely to come from the glaze.
But I admit that this is all theoretical. Field tests are called for.