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Last year, I moved to New York shortly before my birthday. It proved to be a truly awful birthday - I had to wake up at 5 am to dress up as the Pillsbury Doughboy (no joke!) for a temp job. Coming to New York seemed like the biggest mistake of my life: what city could be worth the humiliation I'd just suffered through? Then my roommate gave me a birthday present - a copy of Robert Sietsema's Food Lovers Guide to the Best Ethnic Eating in New York City. I started flipping through the chapters, and I think I just about read the whole thing cover to cover that night. Sietsema introduced me to the city as a collection of edible jewels, to be sought out and prized, there for the brave diner to seek out and enjoy. I found several listings for eateries in my own neightborhood of Crown Heights, and a few days later I made my way to AA Bake & Doubles to try the cheap Trinidadian chickpea sandwiches known as doubles. Thanks to Sietsema, I knew I that "doubles" applies even if one is only buying a single sandwich ("I'll have a doubles, please"), and I felt at ease in the tiny storefront even as I stood out like a sore thumb. But on a larger scale, I knew that I was in the right place, that the sacrifices I would make to survive in New York would be well worth it. A year later, whenever I feel frustrated or dispirited by a crowded train or the sight of another Starbucks, I pull out that slim yellow book and set off, in person or in my mind, to try the best dish I've never heard of.

I was reading these comments about donuts. Its funny because I grew up going to this small place in Pa. Its called Bird in Hand located in Lancaster Pa. They have the most amazing donuts . Not much of a sweet eater but love certain sweets. I grew up getting glazed donuts of Creme filled. They are light and fluffy and fresh. The best thing is they do not keep things over a day old. I have went to a lot of different places in Manhattan and have found that some of the food is not fresh. But as far as Crispy Creme I only like the Glazed off the press.

Why in the world did I skip going into the office that day?

Cookshop usually has some nice donuts made from scratch in the mornings on weekends. You can skip the big brunch and just order a couple of those and some coffee. I've seen chocolate chip there, and jelly. They tend to run out before the late brunch crowd even gets there.

But the best donut I had recently was a cinnamon donut from a farm stand on Sound Ave out on the North Fork... Fifty cents. Just made.

It's probably a good thing we're in a donut dark age here in NYC. If we ever get ready access to great donuts, we're doomed.

thanks for this great posting on donuts.

i too have noticed the disappearance of donuts. there was that great "old fashioned donuts" on the SE corner of Lexington and E. 86th street (which closed about a year ago) and also the 24hr "Coffee Shop" that sold donuts at the SE corner of 8th Avenue and 23rd street (which closed about six years ago). when those places were open i would eat two donuts a day.

have you tried the donuts at Cupcake Cafe? their cake donuts are good (they at times have pumpkin) though their jelly donuts can be too thick with bread.

eli zabar's on madison avenue and 80th street sells an excellent jelly donut. so does cafe sabarsky on SE corner of 5th Avenue and 86th street - which i have had w/ an apricot filling.

but the best jelly donut for me that i can't pass up if i see them in the window is at this small polish grocery store w/ the purple awning in the middle of block on 1st Avenue between 6th & 7th street (western side). they seem to be made of challah and w/ a smudge of raspberry jam in it. YUM!

The only kind of donut I crave is the cider donut.

Thank god I work by Union Square where, in the fall, they can be had on any Greenmarket day, trucked down from my home turf of Upstate NY.

They're dense, cakey and coated in sugar and cinnamon.

I buy a bag of them, and a quart of cider, then I let the donuts sit out for 24 hours so they get a little bit stale.

Finally, I cut them in half (like a bagel) and toast them (in a toaster oven) so that the sugar gets a little caramelized. Then I pull them out while still warm and dunk them in some cider, and then I stuff them in my mouth as if I haven't eaten in a week.

Pure autumnal bliss.

I've lived in NYC for more than 20 years, but hail from Western NY (or, as many of you natives insist on calling it, "Upstate NY). In Western NY, donuts aren't fancy, and they aren't "ironic". And they're a heck of a lot better than they are in New York City.

A friend of mine once speculated that a place can be either a "donut town" or a "bagel town." Sounded good in theory, but how many places other than NYC are really bagel towns? Still another friend of mine in Maine once observed that to truly "get" heavy and fried things such as donuts, it helps if the town is predominantly Christian and blue collar. I actually agreed with that, even though I love donuts and am a white-collar Jew. But, I was pretty much the only Jew in the blue-collar town where I grew up.