Lucky's Doughnuts

More than ever, I am beginning to believe that Vancouver is a "fad-crazy" food town. There was the Bubble Tea explosion in the 90's and more recently - Ramen, Izakayas, Macarons, Gourmet Burgers, Food Carts, Neapolitan Pizza and Gourmet Donuts (not necessarily in that order). I suppose one of the major contributing factors is the large Asian population, in turn leading to a high percentage of Asian restaurants. Hence, anything new (and especially if it isn't Asian), it will be considered "special". Case in point, look at the Mac Shack and Crawfish King/Cray Kitchen. A restaurant dedicated to mac n' cheese has been around in NYC for awhile, but it seems so "different" here. Same with the Southern boil. Sure, we don't have any up here, but it is suddenly the "it" thing because of its scarcity. You wouldn't get the same craze say in Medford, Oregon if there was suddenly an Xiao Long Bao joint.

So when Cartems starting offering a Bacon Maple Donut, it drew ooohs and awwws despite being available at Voodoo and Rocket Donuts for a very long time. Yes, they are not located in Vancity, but this is just reiterating my original point. We are drawn to fads as much as Kim Kardashian is drawn to a camcorder. So off we went to investigate Lucky's Doughnuts, the latest entry in the gourmet donut fad, located inside 49th Parallel Roasters Cafe. Since Viv, the kids, Marshmallow, Sexy Nurse and Postman were all present, it was decided to get a variety of donuts to eat in. My son had the Chocolate Old Fashion and it was mildly sweet. For me, that is perfect since I don't like overly sweet desserts. It was chocolatey yet not as much as the visuals would imply. The cake donut wasn't as soft as it looked either, it was a touch chewy. Postman thought it could've used a touch more sweetness, which I would agree in this case.

As for the Lemon Donut, I apologize for the picture as I didn't get a chance to open it up before snapping away. You see, my daughter wanted to eat it immediately. She actually didn't end up finishing it as the lemon filling was tart and tasted like fresh lemon juice. Good for me, not really for her. So she hijacked my Bacon Apple Fritter instead. Actually, she picked off the bacon bits and apple chunks, leaving me a plain fritter... Luckily I had taken a few bites before that. Again, it wasn't as sweet as it looked (which was a good thing) and it had a firm texture. The exterior was a touch chewy and slightly crunchy. Naturally, the apple and bacon combo worked well together, but there could've been more of both.

Viv decided to go for their coffee and featured donut combo for $4.00. It happened to be the Pistachio Orange Honey. We thought the donut was more glutinous than cake-like. Not a bad thing per se, just an observation. The pistachio and orange really came though with a salty floral quality to it. After awhile, I noticed Viv had a hard time finishing her coffee. It turns out she wasn't really a huge fan of it. There was this vinegary finish which she didn't like (which I'm sure some people do like). At this point, we only had mild enthusiasm about the donuts (especially Postman, who is a food connoisseur in his own right). However, when he bit into the Glazed Donut, his opinion changed for the better. The glaze was sweet, yet not overbearing while the texture of the yeast donut was airy and slightly chewy. He liked this one the most. Marshmallow had the Plain Cake Donut which was pretty much the same as the other cake donuts without any glaze. Therefore, it was less sweet while still being chewy in a gluten-sort-of-way. All-in-all, the donuts were pretty decent with some highlights. They're not exactly cheap but we didn't mind them.

The Good:
- Carefully made gourmet donuts
- Nice hipster place to eat your donuts

The Bad:
- Expensive
- Good, but not that good...