The Truck: Street Donuts, Second Avenue and Pike Street
Jordan Nicholson
The Fare: Donuts
The Stop: One of my go-tos for out-of-towners cruising in Pike Place is Daily Dozen Donuts, where you can watch tiny ringed morsels bask in the fryer and cop a half-dozen, dozen, or more bite-sized donuts with powdered sugar, cinnamon, sprinkles, or plain. Sure, the grease soaks through the bag in a matter of seconds, but I don’t patronize Daily Dozen for my health.
Given my soft spot and developing cavity for Daily Dozen, I was intrigued to try Street Donuts–less a truck than a trailer–that’s posted two blocks away on Second Avenue and Pike with the same general premise. While the aesthetic is certainly slicker and the presentation (in a compostable bowl with a tiny wooden fork-spear) more gourmet, the price is way steeper: $3.35 for 1/2 dozen, $4.50 for a dozen. (Daily Dozen’s dozens are never more than $3.) So what’s the incentive to float two blocks east from the Market?
Street Donut does have the upper hand on ingenuity, and serves a delicate donut that will probably make your gut feel better than Daily Donuts would two hours after consumption. It wins out sheerly due to its unusual flavor options, although with so many to choose from and a two-topping allotment, it’s wise to have a game plan going in. (Additional toppings are 50 cents each, but frugality is the name of the food-truck game.) The sauce options–chocolate, vanilla pudding, mango, and caramel–look pretty when zig-zagged across the donut mound, but their flavor can get a bit lost. It’s best to choose a tantalizing combination of that which gets generously sprinkled and hand-tossed right when the donuts leave the fryer: curry, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, coconut, roasted peanuts, and even ground-up Nerds. I went with the ginger-mango, and while I could hardly detect the mango, the ginger dusting was rather divine. Street Donuts gets points on its breadth and subtle tastes, although it makes no sense to order just a half-dozen for the price. Either step up to the dozen challenge yourself, or bring a friend to share.
Jordan Nicholson
Jordan Nicholson
Street Donuts also serves Herkimer Coffee, an assortment of hot teas (including green tea with roasted brown rice . . . props) and an amazing Mint Lemonade, all for $2/each. I’m not kidding about this lemonade. The downfall of most lemonades is the sweetness, but the mint gave this a cool, refreshing bite, and makes it a perfect compliment to some donuts. Under this week’s finally seasonable heat, it is worth just copping the lemonade if you’re downtown and need a quencher.
Street Donuts is impressive for its balance of indulgence and restraint, and the flavor combinations make this a refined dessert-on-wheels. But when you just need a donut to be a grease bomb for old times’ sake, you know where to go.
