Getting oh so very, very naughty in Front Royal, Virginia @ Naughty Girls Donut Shop (and I didn't even try the Drunkin Donuts) - 98/100

That's right folks, "Virginia is for Lovers" through and through and I didn't know I'd find such naughty donut love on a summer Sunday but then I walked through the door into pin-up beauty/donut heaven and I don't remember much, I lost track of time and space, I think I may have lost basic motor skills, and I'm lucky I was able to walk out the door and drive myself away without hitting anything, and still I barely scratched the surface of possibilities at Naughty Girls Donut Shop in Front Royal, Virginia.

Walk through these doors into Naughty Girls heaven and you've got mannequins hanging out, a great red, black and white themed decor with booths and stools, classic pin-ups on the walls, music from the jukebox, and even employees getting in the act with classy-but-naughty uniforms.

At this point the brain-melting tour of tasty delights can begin with such savory treats as Fried Chicken in donut batter (#&@#!!) and Lunch Paninis which are accompanied by a hot donut made to order.  Breakfast Paninis and meals are there to round things out and get you ready for your donut fun!

Individual selections rotate but you have the Grable Collection consisting of Classic Cake Donuts With A Twist such as the Orange Dream consisting of an Orange Cake Donut, Orange Glaze, and White Chocolate Chips.

You can ogle over the Monroe Collection giving you Raised Donuts On the Edge including gems like the Dirty Snowball made of Caramel Icing, Coconut, and White Chocolate Drizzle.

Then indulge in the Page Collection of Over the Top Filled Donuts such as the Elvis Presley with Banana Filling, Peanut Butter Banana Bit Icing, and Mini Chocolate Chips.

And journey go to a place where even I have not ventured and eat a Drunkin Donut such as the Sunny Delight, which is filled with Barcardi Limon and vanilla bean custard infused with Lemoncello. It’s topped with homemade lemon thyme shortbread cookies and Barcardi Limon and white chocolate drizzle with a Lemoncello and white chocolate poppy seed glaze.

Gluten-free donuts are available too and the Donut Sundae, you just know the "Drunken" possibilities with that are endless...

Luckily I had a donut partner-in-crime so I was able to sample multiple entries in this food Hall of Fame.  Both the Gracie's Pick - Grilled Ham, Peppered Bacon and Swiss & Mushrooms and Ursula's Chick - Crispy Chicken, Cheddar, Crispy Fried Onions, BBQ Sauce and Arugula Salad were fabulous.  And I had paid no attention to the term Palm Panini for these sandwiches but as it turned out, what a small but genius detail!  They're round just like a donut!  Here I am expecting some boring rectangular thing I've had so many times before, and I get a little surprise with even the shape.  Making it look like a donut, it's so simple, yet so effective.

The personalized hot donuts weren't hot enough to match my excitement but you do get to pick your icings and/or sugar toppings.  You get the freshest donuts and the newest icings but I think this is where you really benefit from being a local and have the ability to show up bright and early in the morning or right around a fresh batch to get a nice hot side donut.

The real donut draw were the big guns such as the Waken Bacon - Caramel Espresso Glaze, Peppered Bacon, Toffee and Burnt Sugar.  Dough was soft, light, and flavorful.  It was a great base for the toppings and I could always use more bacon, everyone can.  

An Oreo donut consisting of chocolate cake, vanilla icing, and Oreo cookie bits was a great cake donut comparison to the yeast of the Waken Bacon.  Light crispy outside gave way to a cakey interior, but not too crumbly, and not too dense.  

I am a "Dough and Fillings" man since I've decided either East Coast donuts are too sweet or my taste buds have undergone transformations so I appreciate a good dough.  In a Naughty Girls twist donut creator Tiana Ramos utilizes Madagascar vanilla beans in the dough, breaking them open and adding them to the mix.  I don't know if that specifically does the trick for me, but in any case, the doughs were flavorful and light.  

For my fillings fix I got a sort of M&M Boston Cream with chocolate icing and M&Ms on top. This completed the trifecta of yeast, cake, and filled donuts. This donut was best with the coffee too which is definitely a step above the most generic coffee others serve.  In addition to the Regular carafe available, Honey Caramel and Chocolate Hazelnut were available. And this bonus available for purchase to go, Maple Bacon coffee!  It fills up my apartment with the smell of bacon in the morning!  You can even taste a smoky flavor mixed with a maple syrup flavor but I can taste it a lot better when it's cold.  When hot, there's just something about it that makes it hard to handle, but iced, very nice.

See video taken by the NG staff during my visit!

Post by Naughty Girls Donut Shop.

Naughty Girls Donut Shop

Naughty Girls Facebook

70 Riverton Commons Drive B-20

Front Royal, VA. 22630

Quick Score - 10 - This place is a shrine to donuts and pin-up girls and a love for all food.

Donut Quality - 10 - Just top notch all around, all the tiers of donuts I tried were great quality.  The dough, toppings, and fillings all marvelous.

Donut Selection - 10 - You cannot go in here and not find something to meet your donut need for the day.  And the daily selections that change and rotate only add to the allure of seeing what donut concoction they are up to every day.

Donut Freshness - 8 - Superfresh and I'll just add in this category I was all excited about the "hot" donut with my sandwich.  It is top rack donuts and fresh glazes but maybe a donut "holding cell" like they had at Holey Cream in NYC would do the trick.

Service - 10 - Service was so great and the inclusion of pin-up style "uniforms" only adds to the personnel experience.  It's a little complex there, just so many choices, a visual and aural overload, I like how they ask "Is this your first time here?" and then you can admit you're a Naughty Girls virgin and get a quick rundown of how it works and what you can get.

Extras - 10 - There are just so many, from the donut battered fried chicken, to the sandwiches, to the other deserts such as cupcakes and cannolis, the donut sundae, the breakfast paninis.  Then the coffee in-house and available to buy and take home.  

Appeal - 10 - The decor, the style, the movie posters, the album covers on the walls, and the jukebox, it's all so good. And the entire restaurant being a chalkboard?  It's fun for all ages and my niece would have a blast.

Emotion - 10 - Since my jaw hit the floor of this place, yeah, I'd have to give it a 10/10.

Other's Rating - 10 - This place is so new, it's too soon to judge and deviate from a perfect category score.

Price - 5 - It's not dirt cheap but it's way worth it.  There are specials galore too, daily specials, pop-up specials, there are just so many options for any budget you walk in with.

Donut Dunkability - 5 -  I didn't see any donut holes available but there were mini-donuts available.   Some of the extravagant topping donuts are naturally difficult to dunk, but a little bacon floating in the coffee never hurt no one.

Total - 98

Feed your Inner Hippie

Can you dig it?!   I did, remember, Peace Love & Little Donuts is my favorite donut shop in America!

Peace Love & Little Donuts

Donut Journey- My favorite donut shop in America

Dublin, Baby, Dublin

Strange cloud formations in Wales

The Irish Sea on the approach to Dublin

The Spire

The courtyard in front of the Department of Education

St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral

The Daniel O'Connell Monument

The Ha'penny Bridge and River Liffey

The view East from the Ha'penny Bridge

View from inside the Dublin Castle walls

The Dubh Linn Garden outside Dublin Castle

Looking back at the Dublin Castle from the garden

At the Jameson Distillery

Pilgrimage to Liverpool

Down by the docks

Port of Liverpool Building

The Liver Building

Side view of Port Building and museums

Front view of the Liver Building

St George's Hall outside train station

I've got my own chicken place in Liverpool!

Serene video/art projection on the walls by the lifts in the Liverpool hotel

London - This city is Anchor Spreadable

View of The Monument of South London

Another view of The Monument towards part of the Financial District

More of the Financial District

The Monument itself, a memorial to the Great Fire of 1666

St. Paul's Cathedral from across the Thames

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

The HMS Belfast

Existential Donut Crisis in London @ Dum Dum - 75/100

When does a donut become a donut?  This is the question I am asking myself as I prepare to eat The Zebra, a croissant-layered chocolate pastry, that is baked, not fried. Is it a donut the moment you create a round pastry with a hole in the middle?  Or is it only a donut when it comes out of the hot oil fried?  My instinct tells me it must be fried.  The outer donut shell must gain a little crispness.  It must fry the outside of the dough creating a cocoon for the inner dough to get warm and tender, to craft a unique consistency.  The hot oil has to transform that dough, bring out all the flavors  and enhance the product as frying magically does.

Then again, you can make "donuts" with the donut-maker at home that require no frying, just baking, so why not considered a baked donut the real thing?  You can have baked potato chips, instead of fried potato chips, and they are still potato chips, right?  They are just different, but if you stick with baked, eventually you will come to prefer the taste, right?

This experiment is what is being created at Dum Dum Donutterie located at the Shoreditch Box Park mall.  I had to go because I already heard of the storm it was bringing London.  Donuts almost a quarter the fat of a traditional American donut.  Not going as far as to actually call itself 'healthy', but a healthier alternative to the traditional type.  Donuts are baked, not fried, and they are simply sprayed with a little oil prior to baking.   I'm lucky enough to be in London only a few weeks after the Dum Dum has opened to sellouts at their first permanent location in the Box Park.  They had ingeniously generated huge buzz after a pop up location had done wonders.
 

The Box Park is a great location for a donut shop.  I really have not seen the exact type of retail setting in America.  You have stalls, that can obviously be rented for periods of time, giving the proprieter themself the luxury of not having a huge overhead for a traditiona brick and mortar store.  You get these wild niche stores with different goods along with a great mix of restaurants where I saw tacos available at one place, falafel at another, and gryos at the next.  Not a straight up food court, but a smattering intermingled with shops, with a common outdoor picnic table on the second floor.

So the donut, did it taste good?  Yes, it had tasty layers of cake intertwined with chocolate cream, along with a dark chocolate topping.  But it tasted rather flat.  The insides just didn't burst into your mouth with the vivid tastes and flavor that I usually feel with a donut.  And there is truly no semblance of relation to the mighty Cronut.  I understand that is not the intention like other copycats do, but just the word croissant donut evokes that magical pastry from NYC, and apart from outside appearance, it has no similarity in actual flavor substance.

I went back the next day for a chocolate pistachio and I was much happier with this donut.  The chocolate was rich, the flavor of pistachio was just the right hint of nuttiness that balanced out everything.  And although the donut was a little flat and did not have the "lift" or fullness of a traditional yeast donut, the inside did resemble a traditional yeast donut in taste.  The flavors did come right through the dough and gave a great overall flavor.

So where does this leave me in my donut conundrum?  It was the owner, Paul Hurley, in the shop when I visited and he said something along the line of "I enjoy all types of donuts, different kinds in different ways..."   There is room for all kinds of donuts to be created and consumed, and I'm glad someone out there is pushing the envelope. Just like the shops doing gluten-free.  

It's just me.  I know I'm going to eat other types of fried food once in a while, I sure as hell am not sacrificing my fried donut in the name cutting back.  I'd rather eat healthy all week to enjoy just one traditional fried donut that one day, rather than being able to eat a donut like this two times a week.

Dum Dum Donutterie

Unit 31, Box Park

2-4 Bethanal Green Road

Shoreditch, London, E1 6GY

Quick Score - 7 - A valiant effort at a more health conscious donut

Donut Quality - 6 - Mixed reaction from me on actual donuts themselves

Donut Selection - 7 - About 8 different varieties.  Not a huge selection but some daily specials mix things up.

Donut Freshness - 7 - Not a problem on freshness.  Donuts aren't baked onsite there but in the early morning hours at another location.  No chance of getting a hot donut here though

Service - 10 - Service was terrific and I did not have to see how they deal with the huge lines but they really seem to have it together and a good system for serving

Extras - 6 - The coffee is great and any other extras wouldn't really work and are not necessary.  The stall retail vision really seems to lend to just doing one thing right.  No seating is needed b/c there's tables on the next level above.

Appeal -10  - It's a very appealing adventure and the location is of great appeal

Emotion - 5 - A little dissapointing for me b/c of the hype I had read about.  When I actually bit into the first donut, it was a little flat and a letdown.

Other's Rating - 10 - I will give that a 10 based on the hype and strong reviews in London

Price - 4 - I'm sure it is competitive pricing for London

Donut Dunkability - 3 - No donut holes available, these styles of donuts did not lend themselves well with the coffee for me.

Total - 75

Another Captain Cook around London

Regent Sounds & The Alleycat Bar & Club, where the Rolling Stones recorded their first album,  site of recording by the Kinks, Black Sabbath, many more.  Part of the famed London 'Tin Pan Alley'

Trafalgar Square

Another view of Trafalgar Square

A chicken in Trafalgar Square

Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square

Another gov't building near the Square

Looking across the Horse Guards Parade towards the Horse Guards building and London

In the London hotel room

Cults at the Village Underground in Shoreditch