Sunday, August 30, 2009

Riding, Riding, Riding...all the way to Crown Donut Shop

After taking a breather for two weeks (because of my knee), we were out in full force this weekend. Okay, so really only a ride to the grocery store on Saturday, and a ride to Crown Donuts for breakfast this morning. Too bad Shawn isn't participating in this bike ride thing. He gets all competitive and has taken it much more personally than I have that our team is losing by 100 trips. As our Team Leader said, "every person on the team needs to do 10 trips just to catch up to the other team." A trip is either 1 recreational ride (no matter the distance), or one way to work, or one way back from work, or one way for an errand, or one way back. Thus it makes the most sense (bang for your buck so to speak) to run errands, or bike to work. This is why I have been riding my bike to the grocery store.

So, right. Today's ride.

Because Shawn feels it's a pain to get the bikes out just to ride the less than half a mile to TJ's, I suggested that maybe we go try the place over at Anderson Mill Road and Pecan Park. It's about a mile and a half away, and we'd never eat there otherwise. So at 9 am this morning (when it was only 75 degrees out. I know!), we rode off to Crown Donuts.

The inside reminds me of the Dunkin' Donuts in Glenwood Springs. Only yellow instead of orange.

Crown serves a variety of kolaches, croissants, and donuts. I had a sausage and cheese kolache, a sugar covered cake donut, and a chocolate glazed raised donut. Shawn had a sausage croissant kolache, and a filled long john.

The kolaches are more expensive than TJ's (by about $0.40), but the donuts are cheaper (by about $0.20), so all in all we spent about the same amount of money...actually less because we got a bunch of donuts instead of our normal bunch of kolaches. Crown does have a beef kolache (which TJ's doesn't), but they don't have any fruit kolaches.

The kolache I had tasted very similar to TJ's, but just didn't seem like it didn't have enough cheese, and that it wasn't fully cooked--the bread around the sausage was doughier than I like. Shawn said that the croissant kolache was good, but still said it was on par with TJ's kolaches. Winner: TJ's.

The cake donut was very good. It was moist, it tasted wonderful, and it didn't fall apart when I bit into it. As I said, the donuts at Crown are cheaper than at TJ's, and it seems that they have perfected their recipe for the cake donuts. Winner: Crown.

The raised donut was very airy. VERY airy. I'd start to bite into it, and it would depress by about half before my teeth actually cut into it. The actual donut part was good, I didn't care for the chocolate frosting (but I normally can't bring myself to order a plain glazed donut because I find them un-appetizing...unless I'm ordering for work). The glazed donut had just been put out so it was ultra fresh. Winner: Tie.

Based on the fact that when Shawn ordered a long john, and the lady asked if he wanted it cream filled, he said yes, and she went running to the back carrying the donut. About 30 seconds later she came back with the donut. I can only take this to mean that they fill the long johns to order. And there was a bunch of cream in that thing. Plus it was the eclair type cream (which I don't care for--i always preferred the frosting filled long johns), which was good for Shawn since he likes that stuff. I've always been surprised that he can eat eclair cream after watching Van Wilder. But anyhow, since he's never had the long johns at TJ's, they obviously can't be compared. He did say, however, that Crown's long johns are good and he'd order them again if we went back. Winner: Wash.

So there you have it. Normal and fruit kolaches from TJ's, Croissant kolaches from Crown (based on the fact that TJ's doesn't make croissant kolaches), and cake donuts from Crown. I think next time I bring donuts to work I may get a dozen kolaches from TJs, and a dozen donuts from Crown.

Crown Donuts is located in the small strip mall at Anderson Mill Road at Pecan Park, it is located in the middle of the center, half way between Mesa Rosa and Emler Swim School.

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