Tastease, Hartford, CT
If you want to know where to find delicious mini donuts in CT, check out my latest blog!
It has been a while, but it is time for more donut reviews!! I recently tried a new donut shop sort of close by. Nichole and I had a Derby de Mayo party and bringing 36 delicious mini donuts was the only way to go. I heard quite a bit of good things about Tastease, located in Hartford, CT on the Parkville side of town. I dragged myself out of bed at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning just to make sure I got some donuts. They have shorter hours so I assumed the earlier you get there, the better.
We made our way into the donut shop and we were the first customers! All the donuts to choose from, waiting just for me. Tastease is known for mini donuts. They have a plethora of options. All the toppings, glazes, fillings, and flavors are pre-made when you get there. And, of course I had individually selected each donut and asked 5 questions about each one.
The woman working that morning was super friendly. She randomly gave us a donut to try and it was by far the best one, chocolate donut with chocolate frosting with raspberry filling. I was really excited to try the rest. And midway I realized there was a line forming behind me. And, Nichole told me to pick up the pace but I'm the worst with donut decisions. We got there at the right time. Nichole bought a coffee which came with a free donut. She chose the vanilla cake donut with caramel frosting and chocolate drizzle with a marshmallow in the center , also pretty good.
Everyone at the party enjoyed them. I tried to have as many as I could. All the ones I had I liked. I could have had like 20. They are the perfect size. They aren't overly sweet. And, the cakey texture was delish. All the different donut cake flavors worked well. Again, the chocolate raspberry was the best. The coffee cake flavored were really good and the maple too. They had a German chocolate cake one that wasn't too bad either.
The type of donuts they make are:
Vanilla cake donut
Chocolate cake donut
Blueberry
Cherry
Red velvet
Orange
Dirty donut ( tastes like candy)
Glazed
Cinnamon sugar
Apple
The toppings that you will find on them:
Chocolate Chip
Cookie Dough
Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Fruit Loops
M&Ms
Mini Lucky Marshmallow
Rainbow Sprinkles
Raspberry Jelly
Toasted Coconut
Coconut
German Chocolate
Oreo
Carmel Crunch
Lemon
The donuts definitely exceeded my expectations. I drove by this location probably multiple times. Who knew what I was missing? Seriously, why didn't anyone tell me? And, I heard they make a pretty good cuban sandwich. I will be back because I have at least 30 more flavors combinations to try. Big thumbs up here.
HIKING FOR DONUTS
A blog for the outdoors foodie enthusiast
Hi, I’m Mark. I live in Connecticut. I take new trips every chance I get. A good trip has a great hike, great food, and something fun to do. My goal is to search out new trips and share them to inspire others to try something new and exciting.
If you are looking for posts in a particular place, search by city or state here.
EXPLORE OTHER POSTS IN THE ARCHIVE
RECOMMENDED POSTS
MOST RECENT POSTS
See where I have been recently on Instagram. Follow @HIKINGFORDONUTS
How you Doughin'?
First blog post of 2018. And, this one is about my donut adventures in NYC. There are so many options. Which donut shop did I choose?!?
(say title in heavy new york accent) Starting the blog in 2018 where I left off in 2017, #donutsforlife. After Christmas, Nichole and I decided to take a trip into New York City for the day. We had a lot of plans for the day. One of those was trying out a new donut shop. I did my usual research to find the best donuts in the city. The one shop that stood out to me that would be relatively close to where we would be was Dough. There are multiple locations and seems like Brooklyn is their home base. We spent most of our time in the Flatiron District and there was a location on West 19th street. The shop was trendy and what I expected to see in NYC. The shop was small and cozy with seating by the window and one long table for seating that could fit potentially 10 people. The donut making area in the back seemed pretty large. Good donut eating vibe.
As for the donuts, they were pretty damn good. Nichole is not as big of a donut fan as I am and she said, “whoa, these are like the best donuts we tried.” And, I agree with that. If you didn’t read my final post of 2017, why?? You should! Click here, it’s donutiliciously good. I felt this was one of the better donuts I have tried. They are yeast based and offered a brioche type dough. They were large donuts, above average than what you see most places. The consistency was good and they were kind of chewy to me. The donut itself tasted great. They had the basic stuff like cinnamon sugar, plain glazed, chocolate sprinkles etc. There were quite the flavor offerings and combinations as you would expect from this artisanal style donut shop. They had flavors such as hibiscus to blood orange to dulce de leche to horchata. I didn’t get that crazy. I only limited myself to trying four.....
The Donut Lineup:
1)Café Au Lait - roasted coffee glaze and crunchy pecan topping
2)Toasted Coconut - Coconut glaze topped with toasted coconut flakes
3)Mocha Almond Crunch - Rich glaze made with bittersweet Vintage Plantation chocolate and roasted coffee, topped with a crunchy almond streusel
4)Cinnamon Sugar – self-explanatory, had to try a simple flavor.
My favorite was the Mocha Almond Crunch and Cinnamon sugar. The toasted coconut was lacking flavor but the donut itself is so good I didn’t care. I ate all four, leftover donuts for breakfast. Not ashamed at all. I would definitely go back and try more flavors. They had a Nutella filled one I have donut regrets about. They were sort of pricey, but one donut is very filling. I don’t mind paying for it. All in all, this one of the better donut shops I have been to. Check it out if you are in NYC and looking for a sweet treat.
Bonus Coverage:
Now, you know I sneaked in a second donut tasting. We were in Bryant Park and noticed there was a Doughnuttery truck serving mini donuts. I wasn’t passing that up. They had a lot intriguing flavors. They fried the mini donuts then tossed them in a sugary goodness. However, both flavors we got tasted nothing like the flavors we ordered. They were still pretty tasty but I didn’t Rosemary, Cornmeal & Fig or Vanilla, Lavender & Pistacho.
HIKING FOR DONUTS
A blog for the outdoors foodie enthusiast
Hi, I’m Mark. I live in Connecticut. I take new trips every chance I get. A good trip has a great hike, great food, and something fun to do. My goal is to search out new trips and share them to inspire others to try something new and exciting.
If you are looking for posts in a particular place, search by city or state here.
EXPLORE OTHER POSTS IN THE ARCHIVE
RECOMMENDED POSTS
MOST RECENT POSTS
See where I have been recently on Instagram. Follow @HIKINGFORDONUTS
Best places to eat in Nashville, TN
Nashville is a really fun and vibrant city. Full of music and history. Aside from that, I was excited to try some Nashville food. I tried to find really good local spots. Enjoy my reviews!
Aside from the bar hopping downtown and exploring a new state, I looked forward to eating in Nashville. It was an interesting trip food wise.. I have never been to a heavy, southern food area. I am not the best with spicy food but I was open to trying what Nashville had to offer. It was Labor Day weekend so it was packed everywhere. Also, we had a group of 8 so waiting in lines less than 30 minutes just wasn’t happening.
Like everyone else in Nashville, we wanted to try Biscuit Love. This was by far the most popular brunch spot in the area. Unfortunately, the line was insane.
However, when one door closes, another opens. Browsing to see what brunch places were nearby and calling to see who would accommodate 8 of us, we came across Party Fowl. Yes, you read that correctly. And, it was a great find. The group was really about the boozy brunch and this spot was it. They had various drink specials including spicy Bloody Mary’s. I am not a fan but everyone else was on board with it. As for the food, this was the best place to have Nashville hot chicken and biscuits. The biscuits were so good and they served them as appetizers with this awesome apple butter. Everyone at the table ordered the “Loaded Chicken Biscuit”, which consisted of an open-faced buttermilk biscuit topped with hot chicken (southern fried, mild, medium, Nashville Hot, or Poultrygeist), sawmill gravy, two eggs prepared your way, and lyonnaise potatoes. I didn’t mess around and I went southern fried. And, that was spicy to me. Nichole had to be the only one get something different but it was damn good! She got the smoked chicken frittata. This consisted pulled smoked chicken & caramelized onion frittata topped with melted gruyere cheese.
The trip wouldn’t have been complete without a Waffle House late night feeding. We don’t have them in the Northeast and I have never been to one. It took us two different locations to find one open (not 24 hours...lies). The meal was as expected. It wasn’t bad but it was sketchy….and the roach I noticed crawling around on the floor tied my experience with a bow. Check that off the list.
The Loveless Cafe is a pretty popular location. It is about 30 minutes outside of downtown Nashville on Highway 100. This was a motel converted into shops, markets, and a restaurant. It is like it’s own little mini mall. It is definitely cool. However, it is really crowded. The wait was almost 2 hours! Luckily, Nichole found out we can just get take out and eat on the benches and picnic tables. The food was so good. We got a little of everything. We got the pulled pork, fried green tomato with pimento cheese, and fried chicken biscuit sliders along with a side of mac & cheese and hashbrown casserole. And, a slice of coconut pie. The fried green tomato and pimento cheese combo was by the far the best. The biscuits were on point too. This was worth the price of the rental car.
The other noteworthy place we ate was in the Indigo Hotel called The District Bar & Kitchen. The menu looked good and we were spot on with our choice. For starters, we had a buffalo chicken egg roll and fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese and five pepper jelly. This combo blew my mind the whole trip. Would've never expected fried green tomatoes plus pimento cheese to be absolute heaven...lesson learned. For the entree, I had the Indigo wrap which consisted of pulled pork, country ham, swiss cheese, dijon, bread & butter pickles. Nichole got a good eye. She went with a dish called the Four Way. This was a bed of rigatoni with cheddar cheese covered with tortilla chips and chili. Another good find in downtown Nashville.
Lastly, I can't forget about the ice cream. On the last night, we went to Mike's Ice Cream in the downtown area. They had many ice cream options and a variety of cone options. I got a scoop of red velvet and a scoop of butter pecan in a chocolate chip cookie cone. Oh yea...pure gluttonous.
We got to eat in popular locations and some unknown locations. All in all, another successful trip of eating. There is a lot more food in Nashville to try. Until next time!
HIKING FOR DONUTS
A blog for the outdoors foodie enthusiast
Hi, I’m Mark. I live in Connecticut. I take new trips every chance I get. A good trip has a great hike, great food, and something fun to do. My goal is to search out new trips and share them to inspire others to try something new and exciting.
If you are looking for posts in a particular place, search by city or state here.
EXPLORE OTHER POSTS IN THE ARCHIVE
RECOMMENDED POSTS
MOST RECENT POSTS
See where I have been recently on Instagram. Follow @HIKINGFORDONUTS
Cronuts gone country!
More donut travels! This time I hunted down the most popular donut in Nashville. Check out the blog for my review.
As I do in most my travels, I seek for THEE donut spot in the area. When researching on Nashville, there will was only one spot that continually popped up. That would be Five Daughters Bakery. I was definitely intrigued as their specialty was a croissant donut, or cronuts. And, some of the donuts had filling throughout the inside. They called this type of donut the “100 Layer Donut”. This particular donut is 100 layers rolled in sugar, filled with cream, and topped with a glaze. When we were inside the shop, we overheard the workers explaining to a customer that it takes up to three days to make this creation. In addition to this, they also have paleo style donuts free of sugars/gluten/grains and vegan donuts that avoid animal products. They don’t stop at donuts. They have other pastry options and cupcakes. However, this is about them donuts.
Based on my research, this seemed like a very popular donut shop. Luckily, they have 3 locations in Nashville in the 12 South, Franklin, and East Nashville areas. I figured they would be busy and have line since it was Labor Day weekend. I didn’t think they would run of out donuts! This happened. Two times. I can’t blame them. What I did find out is they have a main location that bakes all the donuts and ships them to the other two locations that morning. Thus, they aren’t 100% fresh and what they get is what they get. They stay open until they run out of donuts. There was no way I was leaving without trying these. We were for 0 for 2 in the 12 South location. Unfortunately for Nichole, I re-arranged our last day so we try one more time at the East Nashville location before our flight. Third time was the charm. The shop was cool and trendy as expected. Located in a small plaza. All the décor fit the personality of the shop. The employees were nice as I stood dumbfounded in my decision.
They were pretty big donuts and I wanted to get a feel for what they had to offer. I had to be selective and four was the max I think I could eat minus Nichole’s occasional nibble. I wanted to try a glaze, one with a fun topping, and a filled version.
The first one I chomped onto was the Maple Glaze. The glaze wasn’t overly sweet. It was just good. The donut was moist and flaky due to the croissant batter. Next up was the cookie dough. Oh boy, this was gluttonous. The cookie dough filling was awesome. This was my favorite for sure. The last donut was the coconut crème. The coconut was toasted, and to me, it had a funny taste. It was interesting to see how the crème was inside through the layers of the donut. This wasn’t too sweet either. This was first true cronut experience and I am not sure what I think. I am a basic yeast dough kinda guy. Against my better judgement, there were paleo donuts that looked editable but probably not worth trying. However, one sounded good enough to try so we did. It was the blueberry cake. This wasn’t for us. We can only blame ourselves…for trying something healthier.
As mentioned, we did try the 12 South Location but they ran out both days. This was in a very popular area and was a cool location. I could see why they ran out. The 12 South area in general is awesome. I thought the shop there was super cool. Here are some pics.
HIKING FOR DONUTS
A blog for the outdoors foodie enthusiast
Hi, I’m Mark. I live in Connecticut. I take new trips every chance I get. A good trip has a great hike, great food, and something fun to do. My goal is to search out new trips and share them to inspire others to try something new and exciting.
If you are looking for posts in a particular place, search by city or state here.
EXPLORE OTHER POSTS IN THE ARCHIVE
RECOMMENDED POSTS
MOST RECENT POSTS
See where I have been recently on Instagram. Follow @HIKINGFORDONUTS