Post 119: Portland - Cursed by Voodoo Doughnut's Bacon Maple Bar (Portland: Southwest/Old Town/Chinatown/Downtown)

Every trip to Portland requires a visit to Voodoo Doughnut whether you love doughnuts or not.  It has become an institution in this city since opening its erection.  Some have flocked to this twenty four hour corner store to simply see the snake of a line, but many more wait patiently to experience that yes, indeed... the magic is in the hole.

Angela and I went to the shop to see what the fuss was all about, and I will stop just shy of saying that the doughnut shop put a spell on us because the two of us left with about three dozen doughnuts... for our friends and family, of course.  We were cursed by the voodoo doughnut to have an unrelenting craving for these fried rounds of dough, but partly, it was because we had absolutely no willpower.  None.

Here are the doughnuts that I bought with the exact descriptions from the menu on the Voodoo website... and some of my commentary.  The site may curse you with uninhibited gluttony too, and it may have possessed me to say some of these things.  Beware.

Voodoo Doll.  Raised yeast doughnut filled with raspberry jelly topped with chocolate frosting and a pretzel stake! Apparently, each voodoo doll looks slightly different from the next.

Bacon Maple Bar.  Raised yeast doughnut with maple frosting and bacon on top! This was delicious... my favorite.

Portland Cream.  Raised yeast doughnut filled with Bavarian cream.  Topped with chocolate and two eyeballs, representing the vision of our great city.  Well, what I see is a doughnut, so I think I will eat the vision of Portland.

Captain my Captain.  Raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting and Captain Crunch! Like drugs, really.  I can smell the sweetness of the sugar.

Triple Chocolate Penetration.  Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting and Cocoa Puffs.  Who's gone kuckoo for Cocoa Puffs now?

Grape Ape.  Raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting, grape dust and lavender sprinkles! It looks a little like a solidified toxic version of grape Kool-Aid. 

Diablos Rex.  Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, red sprinkles, vanilla pentagram and chocolate chips in the middle! This one looks like it's verging on voodoo too.

Dirt Doughnut.  Raised yeast doughnut with vanilla frosting and Oreos! It'd be cool if there were some gummy worms digging their way out of this thing.

Maple Blazer Blunt.  Raised yeast doughnut shaped into a blunt and dusted with cinnamon sugar.  The tip is dipped in maple frosting and red sprinkle embers.  Prices vary due to Blazer Mania! OK, what someone smoking a blunt when they created this?

Marshall Mathers.  Plain cake doughnut with vanilla frosting and mini M&M's! Haha, I get it... it's very punny.

Old Dirty Bastard.  Raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Oreos and peanut butter! Combine the Old Dirty Bastard, the Marshall Mathers and the Maple Blazer Blunt, and you get a Rapper's Delight.  No joke.  It's on the menu for $4.20.

McMinnville Cream.  Raised yeast doughnut with Bavarian cream with maple frosting on top and two eyeballs and a mustache! Wait, does this guy have a brother or cousin that I've seen before?

Neapolitan.  Chocolate cake doughnut with vanilla frosting, strawberry dust and three marshmallows! Why are we so excited about marshmallows?!

There you have it... a baker's dozen of the most popular devilish delights from Voodoo.  I took them back to So Cal with me.  Angela had a dozen of these too.  We got stares from everyone walking through the weird streets of Portlandia, and when we got moved up to the front of the plane (because the TV screen wasn't working), some of the passengers on the plane accused us of bribing the cabin attendants with doughnuts... jokingly, I think.  And back at Long Beach Airport, a dad even said to his son, "Hey, remember the man with all the doughnuts?"

Sugar overload for real.  Until the next voodoo curse, let's all get S.O.F.A.T.

ML - 20120915

Post 26.9: Vancouver - Night 2

Earlier in the day Amanda and I attended the Taiwanese Film Festival that happened to be in town.  The TWFF organization set up shop at Vancouver's International Film Centre.  It was really heart-warming to see a significant Taiwanese population supporting the push to have more representation in the film industry.

 


We watched No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti (Cannot Live Without You), a film about a father's struggle to hold onto his daughter while the pressures of society's laws and bureaucracy pull in the opposite way.  (Wow, can I be more general?) It's a definitely heart-wrenching, tear-inducing film... more than half the theatre audience was sniffling and wiping away tears by the end of the film.  It didn't help that it was based off a true story.  No worries if you have trouble with Mandarin, Taiwanese, or Hakka (all three are spoken in the film)... that's what the subtitles are for! See the trailer here and the other films here.



To close off our fun-filled day of everything Japanese (and a little Taiwanese), Amanda took me to a Japanese snack and candy shop to explore my favorite tooth-decaying treat of all time... Kit Kat! Niiiiice.  See what I found:


Japanese matcha green tea flavor and cherry blossom with matcha green tea.


Framboise flavor and raspberry & passion fruit flavored Kit Kat.


Canada's hazlenut-infused Kit Kat flavor.

And I couldn't resist these little maple creams that I found.  Gahhh... the maple syrup cream literally bursts with each bite.  I planned to bring these back to the States as gifts, but... I ate them all even before we got back on the metro.  Fail.



These little sugary treats and our pit-stop at Urban Fare definitely lifted our spirits.  Woot for an awesome day of food and film in Vancouver.  Can't wait for tomorrow!

Next spot: Ostrich congee

ML - 20100802/20100703

Post 26.3: Vancouver - Day 1 (Breakfast)

Breakfast: From Doughnuts to Dim Sum

I was set on having some delicious dim sum for breakfast on my first full day in Vancouver, so I woke up bright and early and hopped into the apartment's gym for a workout to motivate my metabolism into a manic mode.  I was ready to eat! But alas, dim sum in Canada apparently doesn't get good until close to noon.  So Amanda took me to two pit-stops to pass the time.

Pit-stop 1: Bank of Montreal for some USD-CAD forex (not that exciting)
Pit-stop 2: Tim Hortons, Canada's largest coffee and doughnut chain (much more exciting)

Warming up.

After stretching my stomach with doughnuts, I planned to capitalize on dim sum.

According to Wikipedia (my flawless source of go-to, get-it-quick information) Tim Hortons surpasses McDonald's in fast food sales and knocks Starbucks out of the ballpark in Canadian coffee sales.  Wow, the Canadians must really not like us that much.

The Canadian maple.  The center is filled with maple-flavored custard.

You can't get anymore Canadian than that.

I had noticed the unexpectedly high number of customers at a brightly-lit Tim Hortons on the way back to Burnaby the night before. Either nothing else was open, or this doughnut store is that good. Turns out, it's both. 

Highly patriotic. 

The sprinkles are in the shapes of maple leaves.

Tim Hortons gets pretty creative when it comes to fashioning their doughnuts.  The sprinkles on the Canadian doughnut, made especially for Canada Day (July 1), screamed patriotism with its bright red maple leaves.  I mean, we've got red, white, and blue doughnuts in America... but I've yet to see an Independence Day doughnut with sprinkles in the shape of stars and red and white striped glaze.  Granted, that doughnut would be a lot more complicated to make, but I'm pretty sure Krispy Kreme can manage.

Tim's tiny bits.  I chose at least one each of...

the apple fritter, dutchie, honey dip, sour cream glazed, and chocolate glazed.

The doughnut holes at Tim Hortons (called Timbits) are pretty frickin' creative too.  They don't only have the simple glazed doughnut hole (a few tossed in with each purchase at the local shop in the USA), but they have over a dozen different flavors.  From the apple fritter to the honey dip to the sour cream glazed, it was tough to choose just 10 for my box.

Pretty and porous. 

Amanda pinches the golden inside of a honey dip Timbit.

No worries.  All I needed was a little snack... just a little something to warm my stomach up for... dim sum! So I moved from doughnut holes to dim sum... from one bite-sized item to the next bite-sized item.  Here's a look at the mass of munchies from East No. 1 Seafood Restaurant (第一樓海鮮酒家) that Amanda and I challenged ourselves to:

Har gow (蝦餃).  Steamed shrimp dumplings.

Three jumbo shrimp are encapsulated inside delicate rice paper wrappers.

Siu mai (燒賣).  Steamed pork and shrimp dumplings.

Mini salmon roe grace the top.

Ngow chang (牛腸).  Thick rice noodles wrapped with beef.

It basks in a sweeter but more oily (yet somehow lighter) soy sauce.

 Wu gok (芋頭角).  Deep-fried taro fritter (also a dumpling).

A thousand flaky crunches surround a sweet taro paste and savory ground pork.

Loh bak goh (蘿蔔糕).  Pan-fried turnip cakes.

Spots of Chinese chorizo are lodged intermittently throughout.

Cha siu soh (叉燒酥).  Baked BBQ pork pastries.

The multi-layered flaky crust covering the sweet pork flies when you take a bite.

Ham sui gok (鹹水角).  Literal trans: salty dumplings.

Ground pork and diced mushrooms fill the interior of the football-shaped mochi dumpling.

Vancouver is quickly becoming the new mecca for Chinese food, especially Cantonese cuisine.  Top restaurants in Vancouver have lured the best Chinese chefs from Hong Kong away from their homeland in order to employ them in the highly competitive market of Cantonese cuisine.  As one of the world's most livable cities, Vancouver can be a good enough reason in itself for the chefs to move.  It's no surprise that dim sum all over Vancouver has to be good... or the restaurant is ruined.  Amanda and I continued to see regulars savor their favorite dim sum dishes as dim sum newbies practiced their Cantonese (and their chopsticks).  It's safe to say that East No. 1 Seafood Restaurant has survived the generations and will continue to do so. 

(7 dishes x about 4 per order) / 2 eaters = approximately 14 super big mouthfuls per person.  I was so stuffed, especially because the doughnuts, which I had previously thought would stretch my stomach out, actually cushioned the dim sum as it landed in my stomach.  Eek.  But a successful dim sum brunch, nonetheless.  How much breakfast can I eat? Quite a bit, I guess.

All Romanizations were translated from Cantonese rather than Mandarin to reflect the Cantonese origin of dim sum.

Next post: Lunch!

ML - 20100713/20100702