Trip to Doughnut Plant & Kossar's Bialys (w/pics)

I've been meaning to do a review trip report of these two places and since my GF is taking the camera to Florida with her this week, I figured I'd better get to it. Enjoy!!

Outside The Doughnut Plant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I got there around 8:15 am this morning. They're located at 379 Grand St. New York, NY 10002. The phone number is 212-505-3700. This is the only U.S. location, however he does sell them at various stores in NYC and has 10 shops in Japan and just opened one in Korea.

I think this is a sign advertising The Doughnut Plant in Japan. I love the different shapes of doughnuts. I believe his dad oversees all of those shops.

Pretty cool doughnut motif by the window.

The specials board outside. I like how they color coordinated the names to ingredients. The Meyer lemon doughnuts are especially good. A Meyer lemon is thought to be a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. Not as tart and a little more sweet and they have a wonderful presence in the glaze for the doughnuts.

The price board inside. They have a ton of flavors, but I like the fact that they only focus on a few things. They don't "betray their DNA" as Alton Brown once said and try to be more than that. It's a really small place with that is really for takeout. They do have two really cool old fashioned high chairs and a narrow wall shelf where I slowly polished off two of my babies. They have a few windows where you can peek into the back and watch them making the doughnuts. I didn't want to be too intrusive, so I limited my picture taking inside.

My Valrhona dark chocolate yeast doughnut. I ate it there on the shelf and it was still warm. Notice the white icing "V" for Valrhona? This reminded of the fried dough I had at fairs growing up, only about 50x better. This was an immensely pleasurable eating experience. Soft, warm, slightly chewy and sticky from the glaze, it would almost be criminal to eat this at anything but a leisurely pace.

A shot of my doughnut torn in half. I wanted to be able to show the inside as well.

My blackout doughnut. The next shot says it all...

I tore it open to really get the full effect. I had heard of this for some time. It's described as a cake doughnut with devil's food cake crumbs on top and chocolate pudding inside. I had thought people were exaggerating and it would just be a really really super moist doughnut due to the pudding in the mix. Nope. When I tore it, the pudding oozed out and took my heart with it. Amazing! He is really doing incredible things here that no one else is doing. That's why I'm willing to pay more for it.

A selection of cake doughnuts. From left to right: Blackout, Pistachio, Meyer Lemon and Tres Leches (Three Milks). There are also some Valrhonas in the back on the left. The cake doughnuts are the best I have ever had anywhere, but I do prefer the yeast ones for the chewiness factor. His cake ones are surprisingly light.

A selection of doughnuts clockwise from top left: Pistachio, Peanut Butter glazed (filled with blackberry jelly), Vanilla Bean glazed (filled with blackberry jelly) and a Tres Leches cake doughnut. The first three are all raised yeast doughnuts.

A cross section of the Tres Leches doughnut. This is one of his signature items and I've been wanting to try it for a while, but I'm not a morning person and he usually sells out of them pretty quickly. My gf and I both loved this one and when squeezed, we could see some of the sweetened milk oozing out. Tasted just like the cake I had for my birthday/Cinco de Mayo party.

Cross sections of my Peanut Butter glazed doughnut with blackberry jelly filling. This was soooooo good!!! I have had it before and I think it's an inspired deal. I love the yeast pocket in this one and the chopped peanuts on top. He has a similar one called the "Elvis" (who knew the King would inspire so many food trends?). It's a peanut butter glazed yeast doughnut with a mashed banana filling. Yeah, that's right.



Kossar's Bialys is about two storefronts away from the Doughnut Plant, so naturally, I had to stop in. They are located at 367 Grand Street New York, NY 10002 Phone number 1-877-4-BIALYS (according to their website). They've been doing the same thing under strict rabbinical supervision for over 65 years. Of course, being a goyim, I don't fully understand what that means and I honestly don't don't get the appeal of the bialy over the bagel. I've had them before and I do find them tasty. Is there a preferred way to eat them? Fresh at the store? Toasted? Topped with butter? Cream cheese? Something else?


The board. Again, a place that just focuses on a few things.


A shot of the display case with descriptions and prices.

Their bagels. Decent, but they're not H & H quality.

The bialy case.

A bialy and an everything bagel.

Thanks Billyboy. You are really providing a great service with these photo reports.

I want a big cuppa coffee, a Peanut butter, a Valrhona and a Tres Leches....maybe a coconut cake or two also
Thanks for sharing the photo's.

another appetizing report, billyboy!

When do you sleep?!?!???

quote:

Originally posted by ellen4641

another appetizing report, billyboy!

When do you sleep?!?!???

LOL. I was wondering if he ever stayed home You did it again Billy, nice job.

I am not a huge donut fan, but those looked excellent.If you ever get to Milwaukee, I will take you to National bakery-you would love it!!

annpeeples, if I were staying at a hotel in downtown Milwaukee, would National Bakery be someplace that's easy to get to or too far from downtown for a visitor?

Probably a 15 minute ride.If you ever want directions, ley me know!

Wow Bill, this is one fine post. I'm making a cup of strong coffee just to counter the sweetness shooting off the screen! They look great!

Thanks,annpeeples. 15 mins is certainly do-able. I can map it out.

Wow! You sure know how to ruin a guy's day in Dallas.

Billyboy, I am totally all over this doughnut place on my next visit to NYC. Man, those prices are high, though -- $5 could get you a dozen of the best donuts in the country at various places...but those filled ones could become the guiltiest pleasures of my life. Thank that gods I don't live within convenient driving distance of the city!

And I'd love more info on the enigmatic bialy, too. My father always bought them at delis growing up and loved them; he'd slice them in half like a bagel and eat them toasted with butter. He'd buy a dozen bagels for the rest of us, but the 2-3 bialies were always earmarked for him. Surprisingly (or not?), when I googled "bialy," the Wikipedia entry is first, then Kossar's is second! Chris

Wow. Those flavors look and sound incredible.

I think I am going to burn down a Dunkin Donuts.

MiamiDon, I'd gladly be your co-conspirator in that endeavor! Chris

thanks for another fantastic report, billyboy! doughnuts are not on my list of pastry priorities, but after perusing your report, i became possessed by the need to have Doughnut Plant doughnuts...hope to be stopping there on my next trip into the City...

Billyboy, here is the scoop on bialys, from Wikipedia:


Bialy, a Yiddish word short for bialystoker, from Bia³ystok, a city in Poland, is a small roll that is a traditional dish in Polish Ashkenazi cuisine. A traditional bialy has a diameter of up to 15 cm (6 inches) and is a chewy yeast roll similar to a bagel. Unlike a bagel, which is boiled before baking, a bialy is simply baked, and instead of a hole in the middle it has a depression. Before baking, this depression is filled with diced onions and other ingredients, including (depending on the recipe) garlic, poppy seeds, or bread crumbs.

The name bialy is short for bialystoker kuchen (Bialystok's Cake). The bialy is little known outside of New York City, where it was originally brought into the United States by Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The bialy was first marketed in the United States during the early 1900s in the state of New York by Harry Cohen, a proprietor of a bagel (and later bialy) establishment.

In 2002, former New York Times food writer Mimi Sheraton wrote a book dedicated to the bialy, called the The Bialy Eaters: The Story of a Bread and a Lost World. She reflected on the ancient art of bialy making and used Kossar's Bialys as the background, and its long-time union bakers as key references for her research that took her to Poland in search of the original bialy bakers.

Nice job with the pictures and report. Doughnut Plant looks great.

Nice report! Great mouth-watering pics! I never heard of an onion disc before (assume it's like an onion roll?). What are the preferred spreads/topping for it? Hot or cold?

quote:

Bialy, a Yiddish word short for bialystoker, from Bia³ystok, a city in Poland, is a small roll that is a traditional dish in Polish Ashkenazi cuisine.

Have just connected this in my head to the Producers - Max Bialystock....

Now I have to go find a bagel.

billyboy...You really have a talent for making us ex-NYers miss the area! Now if you had added a "hard roll" place to the report, it would have got me crying.

quote:

The bialy is little known outside of New York City,

I love a good Bialy with a schmeer of cream cheese.

Lucky for me they're all over Los Angeles.

This morning is the morning that I take care of the donut craving that I've had since first reading this tasty thread.

Thanks for the tour.

As the son of a really good baker, it is good to see someone who makes yeast raised donuts right. They should have a bite to them, not be just a mouthful of fluff like all the KrispyKreme donuts I have had.

There is a place in Cincinnati (Buskins's) that makes good raised donuts and one in South Bend, IN that also makes good ones (Dutch Maid??). Most of them I find here in Queens are just fluff with no real flavor to them.

Oh I can smell the fresh baked aroma of those bagels!!!!!!That's an art!