I do not crave donuts, so I do not consider myself a huge donut fan. However, I do enjoy a fried piece of sugary goodness when it is in front of me. My steady, on the other hand, loves donuts and this past spring pointed out to me that Grand Forks is lacking a donut shop. I couldn't believe it! It's true- the only place you can get a donut in this town of 50K is Hugos (regional grocery) or Wal-Mart. We tasted both and did not approve.
Flash forward to this summer. I am working in Fargo, which is the largest city in ND with 100K people. I live in Fargo during the week, and go home to GF on the weekend. Fargo has a couple of local donut dives, as well as grocery stores and coffee shops that sell donuts, but no chains like Shipley's, Krispy Kreme or Dunkin' Donuts. I set out on a mission to find the best donuts in Fargo. On Friday mornings I head to a donut shop, buy a dozen, eat one and then take the rest home with me to GF for more testing. Sadly, I must admit that I am a sick of donuts (who knew that was possible?!). The top three so far are: 1) Sandy's; 2) Quality Bakery 3) Hornbachers. Sandy's were a nice size, sticky, and the sugar glaze was not granular. Sandy's big flaw is that their donuts are not warm. Quality gave me a baker's dozen, but the frosting and glaze made eating their donuts like eating a cookie at the beach (too granular). Hornbachers were too big and reminded me way too much of Wal-Mart's recipe. Each place could learn a thing or two from Shipley's and the benefit of serving donuts warm.
If you have a donut shop in your town- consider yourself lucky. I am hoping my friends in Waco who own several Shipley's will read this blog post and take advantage of the donut opportunities in North Dakota.
You would make an excellent restaurant/food critic!
P.S. So good to see a new post from you!