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Doughnut Plant Chelsea Review: Eating lots of donuts is good

Doughnut Plant Chelsea Review: Eating lots of donuts is good

Sometimes I wish for a better balance between anecdotes and data. For a while in October, my phone was dying a slow death after three years of Windows Mobile, and I didn’t listen to Radio Lab for a while. This week I caught up on it and was amazed by their storytelling abilities. There was one episode on Inheritance and in that episode was a segment about a meth addict woman who had at least eight children, and she abandoned each one at the hospital after birth. The story was about whether or not the kids inherited any bad effects by starting out with such unfortunate circumstances. The story was very compelling, but I can’t help but wonder how it really would shape a listeners views about a particular issue by going with a sample size of eight. But since the radio prose strummed such beautiful cords, I just think about how often views are changed at the hands of good writers. In the food world, obviously we live in the delicate chorus of words. I just wish there are better ways to kind of string together the data. And please don’t advocate Yelp. Goodness. The pitfalls of data is there as well, if you read the story from the New York Times Magazine about how a writer created two online identities. Algorithms push individuals into a maze, and in that tangled path of computer bits, are information that are tailored for you. Would the algorithm always be correct or correct most of the time? There’s going to be a time in the future when google or facebook (since they run our lives) can guess what you had for lunch or dinner, and based upon their assumption of what someone like you might want to eat in the following meals, display ads for such things. For example, I bet if you Four Square at a Thai place on Monday, they might calculate that some percentage of individuals who eat Thai early in the week at some point crave Italian food, and then show you ads for all the highest bidding Italian restaurants. That’s what I mean when I say data. At that point, they’re not betting that you make your decision on what to cook or eat based upon how well the New York Times Dining correspondent feels about the next hot tapas restaurants. Obviously depending only on one or another isn’t the best, and we’re certainly not at a place where data driven suggestions can be powerful enough to truly make a dent. What does one do in such a situation? Well, if the budget allows, you should try to collect as much data as possible and that’s why the NYTimes Dining reviews all require at least three visits. In the instance of doughnuts, I tried to do just that in September (yes I know, it’s December already). But back in early Fall, I sampled a bunch of stuff from the Doughnut Plant.

I tried (some not for the first time), coconut creme, chocolate cake donut, plain glazed, creme brulee, raspberry, rose, green tea, and tres leches. As usual, most of Doughnut Plant’s offerings were delicious.Before this huge glut of donuts, I already knew Doughnut Plant was the best in the city. So why did I eat so many then? Because life is short and you might as well.

I can tell you these donuts are good at the store, or if you take it home. They’re good as a snack at work, or if you keep it for the day after as breakfast. They basically can’t go wrong. Are they pricier than what you would find at Duncan Donuts? Yes, therefore these doughnuts should be seen as a treat, and not as an every day sort of thing. If you can afford to eat them daily, then fuck you.

One tiny thing about cake doughnuts at the Doughnut Plant… while the yeast doughnuts are quite pillowy with a nice chew, the cake donuts aren’t any more moist than other cake donuts you might find elsewhere. What you do get from them are more interesting flavors. So just keep that in mind. Yeast doughnut? Yes, better texture than most other places. Cake donuts? Texture the same. but better flavors.

There was a seasonal flavor of Rose flavored donut. I forgot what the hell they call the smaller doughnuts at Doughnut Plant. I think it’s like a ‘doughseed’ or something like that. Whatever the name may be, the rose flavored one was really good. Not too sweet or with crazy grassy undertones. They did a good job with this one, and if you see it at some point, give it a try.

Doughnut Plant Chelsea220 W 23rd St.New York, NY 10011

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