The Afterglow: The Doughnut Plant

The Doughnut Plant has haunted us Gourmetros for too long. Two weeks ago, we'd had enough of hearing rave reviews, so we trucked down from SpaHa to see for ourselves whether these were indeed gifts from some benevolent yeasty/cakey doughnut god. We tried to get down there sooner, we really did, but the Plant's schedule and LES locale kept us from their fatty comestables. Oh, and the other motivating factor was a Food Network Throwdown: if the place has a FN special, it's either jumped the shark, or it's buzz-proof.

Between the two trips, we sampled the following cake and yeast-risen 'nuts: Tres Leches, Chocolate Blackout, Triple Chocolate, Peanut Butter & Jelly, Raspberry Filled, Valrhona Glazed, Strawberry Glazed, and Coconut Cream.

Our feelings about the yeast and cake run along the lines of Ed Levine's reaction last fall. The cake 'nuts were remarkable on both occasions; the Tres Leches' delightfully moist cake, thin ribbon of filling, and crisp glaze made for a truly killer baked good (pictured: right). One of these every morning for the rest of our lives would make us happy (if fat) individuals. These guys achieve a near-perfect balance in the sweetness/texture fields. If the Tres Leches or Blackouts had been treated like a [blech] Dunkin' style filled doughnut (disk-shaped, lake of filling) they would have been far too sweet.

The yeast doughnuts, however beautiful, lacked in every possible way (with one exception). We were shocked at how a seemingly light doughnut could be so tough, chewy, bland and overpowering. The Valrhona glazed was bland (pictured: bottom); the PB&J, chewy and bo-ring (we may as well have just eaten a sandwich...); and strawberry glazed was waay too sweet.

Thankfully, the Coconut Cream yeast-risen doughnut blew the other yeasties out of the water: it was blessed with nuanced coconut flavor, a spot-on cream-to-bread ratio, and it wasn't too tooth-achingly sweet (though it toed the line on that one). The key to the yeast doughnuts, we think, is timing. If we ever get there early, we'll give them another shot.

In the end, the cake doughnuts were some of the best things we've ever put in our mouths. Leave their yeast-risen brethren to the seething hordes of Food Network gastrotourists.

The Afterglow is a reoccurring feature where Gourmetros visit buzzworthy places a bit after the buzz. Call us lazy if you must, but we just want to find out for ourselves if the places were ever worth it.

For more delicious doughnut shots, check out our Flickr account.

Dessertgasm: Buzz Bakery

Buzz Bakery has been receiving a lot of press lately, so Roommate and I set out for the new dessert place on a Thursday evening.

After perusing the online menu, I knew I would have a mild panic attack when I got there. SO MANY CHOICES. Buzz is open from 8 am to midnight, so you can pick up croissant and a coffee on your way to work, snuggle up with a good book and some drinking chocolate, or mosey in for a late-night dessert-fest. The late night dessert meal is possibly my favorite of all meals, and there need to be more places satisfying my need for this. Well done, Buzz.

Anyway, I did have a mild, joy-induced spaz when I got there, but I finally just resigned myself that I would have to come back 15 more times to try everything. I settled for the cinnamon-sugar donuts with dipping sauces and Roommate got the chocolate pate with espresso whipped cream. (We shared a lovely pot of tropical green tea to wash it all down.) The donuts were loaded with cinnamon sugar goodness, had a nice crunch on the outside and were not at all greasy. The dipping sauces were creme anglaise (my favorite), bittersweet chocolate, and raspberry coulis. Roommate's chocolate pate was rich, but melted in your mouth and wasn't too heavy. It paired perfectly with the fluffy espresso whipped cream.

And because I couldn't satisfy myself with just ONE dessert, I sprung for a coconut cupcake to go. It came in an adorable chinese food container. It was good, but not as delicious as I was hoping for.

Not food-related, but the design of the place was spectacular. Big windows, bright colors, and the art on the wall was comprised of "found object" cooking utensils - like a kite made out of old cookie cutters. Lots of low tables, couches, and chairs that lent themselves well to either an intimate evening experience or for curling up with a book and a latte during the day.


Technorati Tags: Dessert, Food, Bakery

Custard does a (hot) body good

If you've been living on the East coast, you've probably been sweating profusely or haven't left your apartment in the past week. The only remedy for such heat, besides more cowbell, is ice cream.

I'm kind of an ice cream snob, as I used to work at Graeter's, which has been named by USA Today and Oprah as the nation's best ice cream. (Yeah, that's right. And I was employee of the month - twice. Booyah.) For those non-purists that like to mix fourteen different kinds of candy into their vanilla bean...I scoff at you. Cold Stone just doesn't cut it when compared to hand-churned ice cream with chocolate chips the size of your face. So let's just say I have high standards when it comes to sweet things of the frozen variety, mmkay?

Tuesday, my roommate and I headed to the Dairy Godmother, a frozen custard shop in Del Ray. I had heard good things about the place from friends and food critics alike. Custard is a little bit different than ice cream - basically, it has more egg and less air. Somehow it's healthier for you than regular ice cream too! Custard as health food - whodathunk? Flavorwise, they always have vanilla & chocolate, plus a daily flavor which changes....daily. Tuesday it was "Summer Pudding." Also known as "We Wanted to be as Vague as Possible." It ended up being a mildly berry-flavored custard, pink with bits of (fresh!) berries scattered throughout. I went for a Summer Pudding hot fudge sundae, with slivered almonds, whipped cream and a cherry on top. I had forgotten how good hot fudge and ice cream are. *drools thinking about it* Phew, anyway...slivered almonds are not my favorite sundae nut - I'm more of a toasted walnut girl - but they got the job done.

Katie opted for a root beer float - perhaps because I went apoplectic when I saw the cases of Sprecher root beer (and cream soda, and orange soda, and ginger ale) lined up around the store. Once upon a time, my family and I went to Madison, Wisconsin and had some Sprecher root beer. Let's just say...my life has never been the same since ingesting that flavorful, zingy root beer. We brought two cases of it home (to Ohio) with us because it was so good. I have since hoped to find Sprecher in some of the gourmet shops I frequent, but to no avail. Until now!! YAY!!! The Dairy Godmother herself is from Wisconsin, and I'm guessing she realized that she had to spread the Sprecher glory to DC in order to produce a truly awesome root beer float. And awesome it was.

In addition, you all should check out Cookthink - thanks to metrocurean for the link - very cool foodie blog focusing on "unrefined" cooking and eating. Their manifesto makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Thanks to Flickr user mzn37 for the picture of deliciousness. Looking for food pictures is extremely hard work, as it makes you very hungry. (Look, Skip - I can use Flickr too!!)



Technorati Tags: Food, Ice Cream

Like a hot new crush.

Sooooooooooooo, last Saturday, Aaron, Debbie, and I hit up the National Building Museum to check out the Green Homes Exhibit (because I am ridiculously pro-eco-design = pretty), and in the GlideHouse they'd built in the beginning of the exhibit, there were some beautiful, beautiful things. I mean, seriously, can you have food porn without cookware/kitchenporn? I think not. After all, that's why places like Williams Sonoma exist. But I digress! For those eco-conscious foodies out there, take a look at these babies: Bambu Veneerware Plates. They have sturdier, dishwasher-safe versions for everyday use as well.

Or perhaps knives are your thing? The Schaschlik might just be what the doctor ordered (although on a funnier note, I found this while I was googling the aforementioned).

After we were done at the museum, a brisk walk past the International Spy Museum brought us to the newly-opened Cowgirl Creamery. Between the three of us, we purchased a pound of medium-aged gouda, a 1/4-lb of SUPER-aged gouda (for me! for me!), a round of Cowgirl's own Mt. Tam, (so. so. good. triple-creamy deliciousness..., and some kind of lamby-gouda-thingie that I can't remember the name of. Add some Apple Scrapple and Gouda & Guinness bread from Great Harvest, and some organic strawberries, and you have us gorging ourselves on cheese! All I needed was some beer.

The weekend previous, on a different expedition to DC, Debbie and I met up with Kimberly at CakeLove/LoveCafe for cake. What I learned from the experience: Crunchy Feet are delectable (and by that token, all tarts are to be eaten immediately as they are built on top of Crunchy Feet), Neil's Hat Trick is amazing, and yes, if you are a single girl buying $30 dollars worth of pastry, you will get a funny look from the cashier. While the hype for CakeLove is to a certain extent accurate (owner Warren Brown now has his own show on Food Network - Sugar Rush), watch out for floods of hipsters patronizing either portion of the establishment. They're there, and you can tell by how they're dressed. I mean, it is on U Street after all...

So, with many linkages and scattered foodfare, I bid you adieu until the next time I gorge myself and feel like you should know about it!

P.S. Joanie, so, this Cheesetique gig...:P

Food, Cheese, Carbohydrates, Gorging

Burgers & Cupcakes (aaand more cupcakes)

Burgers and cupcakes.

Cupcakes and burgers.

I occasionally try to think about how obsessed I've gotten with those two foods since I moved here last fall. In a city with thousands of restaurants and hundreds of cuisines and styles, I keep gravitating back to these embarrassingly basic items. What it comes down to, I think, is that I'd had my share of both before I came here and that makes it easier to set a benchmark. When I have Vietnamese food, it usually tastes like the best Vietnamese food I've ever had (since I've had so little Vietnamese). Give me a cupcake and I can talk about it until I'm as blue as the buttercream icing. (I couldn't help myself. It was better than anything I could think of for a burger)

So this past weekend, Meg, her brother, and I went to Burgers & Cupcakes for some, um, well, burgers. and cupcakes. (As a side note, it's somewhat frustrating that The Girl Who Ate Everything gets to these places before I do. I mean, she eats everything, I know, but sometimes I wish I could eat something somewhere before she does. One day I could be The Guy Who Ate Somewhere First. It's a good aspiration, I'll add it to my list.)

The space looks more like a bakery than a diner, with metallic tables and fun artwork. The painting of the dude eating an onion-topped hamburger and breathing on his, visibly distressed, dog is my favorite. The menu had a bunch of interesting options, including salmon burgers, but the coolest part may have been the topping choices. A bit pricey, but how often can you have a salmon burger with avocado, goat cheese and vegetarian chili (ok, that sounds pretty awful to me, but you could have it). Meg and I got classic cheeseburgers (mine medium, hers medium-well) and her brother went all crazy and added double-thick bacon. And they weren't lying. That bacon was really thick.

B&C offers solid but not outstanding, restaurant-style burgers (as defined in this Augieland post). The size was appropriate and there were moderate levels of juiciness, but they all came more or less grey. Juicy, but grey (which still receives a passing grade in my book; in most cases I could care less about the color as long as it's not desiccated). The fries were a bit soggy.

And the cupcakes. We tried a bunch. The blueberry with vanilla icing, vanilla with chocolate, and a few regular vanilla buttercreams (they were out of pretty much everything else). They were interesting, but inconsistent and DRY! Is there anyplace in this enormous, apparently godforsaken city that makes moist cupcakes? The vanilla with chocolate icing was probably my favorite; the icing was more like ganache than regular icing and matched the density of the cake very well. The buttercreams were quite standard. Bleh. Three inches of buttercream atop a bland cupcake does nothing for me.

The burgers were good, the vanilla/chocolate cupcake was also good, and service was bad; I would go back.

Technorati Tags: Food, Hamburger, Cupcake, New York City
Special thanks to kendiala over at flickr for the cupcake.