Photo by Jamie Stodola via Facebook
Bjorn (center) and I (left) had the strenuous task of eating doughnuts at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, Ore. while D.J. Patton (right) looks on with incredulous wonder.
I recently went to Portland, Ore. for a wedding (this seems to be the start of the wedding season for me; two more wedding are coming up in short succession. Maybe everyone was “falling” in love. Haaaa.)
But this post is not about the wedding. Nor is it about Portland (although it was my first time there and it is indeed a lovely city with extremely friendly customer service and post-grunge neo-hippies galore. The dream of the ’90s is indeed alive in Portland. )
No, this post, of course, is about the food I ate there.
More specifically, Voodoo Doughnuts. Voodoo Doughnuts is billed as “world famous,” and the line at least 40 people deep at 8 in the morning, on a Sunday no less, seems testament to its popularity (shocking, I know, but I will get up early for doughnuts.)
The doughnuts were chaotically colorful, like Captain My Captain (raised yeast with vanilla frosting and Captain Crunch cereal), skated on the wild taste side (bacon maple) and had inventive names like triple chocolate penetration (chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting and coco-puffs.)
As all good eaters know, variety is the name of the game. So my husband and I chose the Mango Tango (raised yeast doughnut filled with mango jelly and topped with vanilla frosting and tang); the Dirt doughnut (raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting and Oreos); Memphis Mafia (fried dough with banana chunks and cinnamon sugar covered in a glaze with chocolate frosting, peanut butter, peanuts and chocolate chips on top); and Old Dirty Bastard (raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Oreo’s and peanut butter).
The tagline of the place is “The Magic is in the Hole,” and sadly, that was true. Something was missing. They looked beautiful. They sounded wonderful. But they weren’t I-will-gladly-get-up-at-a-freakishly-early-hour-on-the-weekend-to-stand-in-line-behind-40-people good.
They were a little too sweet for me (which is saying a lot as I am Filipino (we put sugar in our spaghetti) and diabetes does not run in our family for nothing). They were too dense for me, too (read: tasted a little old, which is odd considering how early in the morning we were there). Plus, all the topping were just too much (I know! Coming from me, whose middle name should be “Give me more”!)
Maybe I just have plebian tastes, but give me a Krispy Kreme lemon-filled (with a chocolate iced creme filled and original glazed on the side, natch) any day.
Jammie Karlman is the entertainment editor for the Chico Enterprise-Record. Contact her at buzz@chicoer.com. Follow her on Twitter @JammieKarlman
