Day 217: Lard Lad Donuts

Lard Lad

Lard Lad

I can scratch off another thing from my unofficial Food Bucket List: a Lard Lad donut (pictured above, which doesn’t do justice to its actual size).

As a longtime fan of the Simpsons, I was thrilled when one of the attendees to our recent Game Night brought one of these oversized donuts to the festivities. They’re only sold at Krustyland in Universal Studios, so it’s definitely not an everyday type of treat.

The last time I was at Universal Studios, I was geeking out at Krustyland. The Simpsons ride was fun, but it was all of the details throughout Krustyland that I appreciated the most. The only thing open at the time was the Kwik-E-Mart, which was basically a Simpsons souvenir shop. Now there are actual Krusty Burgers and Duff Beer (!) being sold there, along with the Lard Lad donuts.

One bite of the pink glaze with rainbow sprinkles made me utter the Homer Simpsonism, “Mmm … donut.” Simpsons fans will be pleased.

Day 198: The Donut Hole

The Donut Hole. La Puente, California.

The Donut Hole. La Puente, California.

I was in La Puente this morning, which meant I had to stop at The Donut Hole. While Randy’s Donuts in Inglewood is the Los Angeles icon, for my money The Donut Hole offers the best bang for your buck. Where else can you drive through a donut-shaped building for a dozen fried bits of heaven?

As I wrote on Yelp, the donuts were pretty standard fare. However, things have improved: today I noticed the addition of specialty donuts: red velvet, Fruity Pebbles, Froot Loops, and others. I ordered the blueberry donut and a dozen cronut holes and both were excellent.

The food is secondary, though. It’s all about the experience of driving through the giant donut: it’ll delight your kids and the kid in you.

Day 156: National Doughnut Day

Free donuts make me smile

Free doughnuts make me smile

I had no idea that National Doughnut Day had such a long and military-influenced history (read about it here). Apparently, the day has been recognized since 1938, but doughnut shops giving away donuts on the first Friday of June is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Today, I stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts. There was a line out the door so I decided to drive-thru and pick up my favorite coffee and score my free doughnut (one for every drink purchased). The drive-thru wasn’t moving much quicker than the one in the store, but I eventually had my breakfast. Even though I’m not a fan of the food at DD, the coffee is consistently good and I was happy to be celebrating with the rest of the nation.

Note: I usually go with “donut” as my way of spelling these fried slices of heaven, but in honor of this special day, I’ve decided to heed the Grammar Girl’s advice and go with “doughnut.”