Donuts From Mighty O and Dough Joy

Yes, I have a penchant for donuts. Thus imagine my surprise, shock, horror upon moving here to see the plethora of shops which abound in this town. Surprise that there were so many, shock of so many in a kind of healthy seeming town, horror that it means I am going to have to try them all! And to be honest, so far I have been to quite a few, more than once, and I have only been here three months. It’s why I’ve added yoga to my running, otherwise I am on the train to chunky town.

With all these spots just calling my name it could turn this blog into just the donut blog. Not a bad thing mind you, but I do like to spread my eating around. Thus I decided to combine two into one and it seemed quite fortuitous that both of the spots I came across had some similar offerings which made them ripe to compare and contrast.

In one corner we have Mighty-O Donuts and in the other Dough Joy. Both have a lot in common offering up vegan, dairy free, egg free, blah, blah, blah, too much sugar, no taste, blah, blah, blah. Okay, what is it with all these vegan things here, not even SF was this proliferate. Okay I kid, but seriously. I’m still game to try, regardless of my past experiences with these things because—BAKED GOODS! There are some subtle differences in these places as Mighty-O goes the full organic and cakey while Dough Joy follows the yeast raised style in addition to all the other vegany things both these places do.

Lucky me though as both were serving up versions of apple fritters and pumpkin spice donuts. Both of which I like to consider myself an aficionado of. I have certainly eaten more than my fair share of them over the decades and even covered a number of them in this blog. I saw it as kismet both spots had them and thus the idea to just compare and contrast and get my sugar crash on.

Here we have the apple fritter from Mighty-O, though, don’t be deceived by the photo, it is the size of a standard donut and easily fit in the palm of my hand. And at $4 something a pop, I’m gonna consider that a knock. You know I like them big! It had a decent amount of apple pieces in it but then again, it was’t that big and thus not hard to do. It also could have used a touch more cinnamon in the mix but at least it was sufficiently coated with glaze. The dough lacked some of the crispy edges you get with deep fried dough and bits were a tad chewy. I guess it helps this was only a three or four bite fritter yet they were not exactly satisfying bites. Or at least not the satisfying ones I was hoping for.

This is their pumpkin spice donut. It is a cake donut with the spices mixed into the dough and into the drip glaze on top. One bite in and, well, this was more mostly nutmeg than pumpkin spice. Either the blend was off or the someone got a little heavy handed with it. Either way, it came out on the bitter tasting side. And, while you may find this hard to believe, I did not finish this. I know, you’re shocked, I’m shocked, we’re all shocked. I passed this off to birds and whatever other woodland creatures wanted to try it, though felt guilty they’d get the same taste sensation I got. This was underwhelmingly disappointing especially again at that $4 something price point. Taste and size matter and neither of these was meeting my standards considering price.

This is Dough Joy’s apple fritter and again this is in the $4 something price range but it is more than twice the size of that thing above. Right off the bat it had the look and size of something you’d find at an old school donut shop. Large chunks of apple, crispy edges, copious bites of cinnamon and a hearty outer glaze. If you didn’t know this was vegan you would never be able to tell. This was pretty much everything I look for in a fritter. Sans the price, but you can’t have everything and just as well as it keep me from getting these on a regular basis and leaving them as special treats instead.

Their pumpkin cheesecake donut was also of ample size. These are moderately fluffy yeast (though isn’t yeast like a live thing? Seems it raises questions and dough in vegan land) raised things with the toppings carrying all the flavor. They did the pumpkin spice in the frosting/glaze crunch on top and managed to get the right kind of mix to give you the taste I was looking for in my pumpkin stuff. The “cheesecake” part was more of a faux whipped thing that was a nice light touch though would not really call it cream cheese cheesecake. Still, it a nice enough addition. I will say the donut wasn’t as light as you might expect from yeast raised ones, it did have some dense less spongy areas to it. Sort of brioche bun like as opposed to donut. I think for me it work since I do like my dessert pastries to have some heft to them and the slightly thicker-ness(?) of these seemed to work in their favor. As above, not a fan of the pricing, but it keeps them as a treat instead of an everyday thing.

I think the evidence was clear here and it really pains me to say the vegan-ish Dough Joy won this donut throw down by leaps and bounds. Considering the prices on them both are about the same, between taste and size they really could not be beat. To make it even worse, I actually went to Mighty-O’s again to try some of their other offerings but I found the flavors to be both lacking and muddled, not to mention the cakey-ness of the donuts being more thick and crumbly than moist (gotta love that word!). I found it a real shame too as Mighty-O seemed to be the only place open early (6am!) and I could hit it before work. Though I guess it is better in the long run as I refer you to my earlier comment about my trip to chunky town. Same goes for the later opening Dough Joy. Thank goodness for small favors? They have a couple locations so obviously they have fans, I’m just not one of them.

What can I say, I mean it, really what can I say? I thoroughly enjoyed a vegan donut, something you might not ever hear me say again, but who knows. With so many more bakeries and donut places to try in this town, it seems they might be upping their baked good game and with it so will I. And won’t you take me to—badum, badum, badum—CHUNKY TOWN!