Portland, Part 1: Donut Tour and Review

 

6/24/24 Old Dirty Bastard Voodoo doughnut sketched on my hotel's sunny and pleasant third-floor patio. While I was out there, I sketched a few other things.

Over-rated but definitely the best logo!

I was in Portland, Oregon, for a few days to visit family and, of course, to sketch! Other than terrible Interstate 5 traffic both going and returning, I had a fantastic time. Beautiful weather (warmer than Seattle, which is only 175 miles north), familiar and new sketcher friends, familiar and new locations to sketch – it was all fun!

With several posts planned, I’m going to start with the over-arching theme of my visit: a Portland donut tour! Portland is well known for its multitude of donut shops, both fancy and basic. Voodoo Doughnut probably started it all, and people line up every day at the Old Town location for the shop’s colorful, over-the-top, elaborately decorated creations. I think going to that flagship store is the functional equivalent of standing in line at the Pike Place Market’s “original” Starbucks (which isn’t even actually the first location, but the myth continues), so I followed a tip from a local and went to the Davis location, where there was no line at all and free onsite parking, to boot.

Voodoo's Old Dirty Bastard

It gets all the press, but frankly, I think Voodoo is over-rated. I chose an Old Dirty Bastard, a “raised ring with chocolate frosting, chocolate cream-filled cookies, and peanut butter drizzle.” So much sugary frou-frou on top, but the basic donut dough is . . . basic. Voodoo gets points, however, for a great logo that was more fun to draw than the donut.

I first became hooked on mochi donuts during the pandemic, when Seattle Fish Guys included Milkvue Donuts in one of its meal kits. The mochi donut base is made of rice, which gives it a unique, chewy texture. The beautiful, floral-shaped donuts were both delicious and gorgeous to sketch. Portland’s Mikiko Mochi Donuts are not quite as light as Milkvue’s, but they have the added benefit of being totally gluten-free (Milkvue and some other mochi donuts include some wheat flour). Mikiko’s penchant for natural ingredients and no artificial colors meant that many were not very pretty to sketch. For example, my grayish-looking BSJ (black sesame glazed with a drizzle of marionberry jam) was amazing but unappealing to look at (or draw). However, because I had arrived less than an hour before closing time, and the shop still had lots of donuts left on a slow day, they gave me three for the price of one! I never look a gift donut in the mouth (and they were all excellent, especially if I ate them with my eyes closed).

6/23/24 Mikiko Mochi donuts, a street scene sketched while I enjoyed a donut and my hotel's colorful patio furniture

My hands-down favorite from this tour was Blue Star, which not only offers unique flavors, its brioche dough is truly unique and scrumptious. I favor raised over cake donuts, so I always choose from the raised selection in any donut shop. Several friends had raved about the Cointreau Crème Brûlée, but sadly, it wasn’t available the day I went. The Blueberry Bourbon Basil, as unusual as it sounds, was both beautiful and delicious.

6/25/24 Blue Star Blueberry Bourbon Basil brioche donut. Also shown is the rest of my breakfast, which was part of Inn at Northrup Station's daily Continental breakfast offering. The note I wrote was in reference to a scene I witnessed in the hotel breakfast room: A man was quietly enjoying his breakfast while reading, when a woman who was obviously a colleague (both dressed for a business function) greeted him heartily and plunked herself down at his table. It was an introvert's trauma that I had suffered so many times on business trips: All I wanted was a peaceful solo breakfast before embarking on a long day of listening to co-workers yack, and it would be ruined by co-workers joining me uninvited. 

I wanted to bring a box of Donut Bites as a gift to my brother and his wife, and they were all vegan/cake options, so it was a good opportunity to try a “bite” of Blue Star’s Maple-Glazed vegan/cake dough – and it was fantastic, too! I regretted that I didn’t sample one of the regular-size vegan donuts (to be fair, inclusive and totally piggy). I’ll save that (and Portland’s many other donut shops that I didn’t have time to try) for next time.

I didn't have the right colors with me to sketch Blue Star's lovely Blueberry Bourbon Basil appropriately, but I was too happy eating it to care.

 

Blue Star Bites -- vegan cake donuts

Krispy Kreme

 

5/11/21 Krispy Kreme, Aurora Ave. N.

If I had to choose a favorite, it would not be Krispy Kreme. I much prefer Top Pot Doughnuts (my top pick for celebrating National Donut Day) and Milkvue Donuts, both of which I’ve sketched and enjoyed multiple times. Still, I don’t recall ever declining a free donut, so I had no complaints about visiting my nearest Krispy Kreme and proudly presenting my Vaccination Record Card to receive one.

The sky was clear, the temperature was in the mid-60s, the top was down on the Miata. Scarfing down my free donut as I sketched, I had no doubt: Life is good.

Secondary Triad Donuts

 

4/13/21 Milkvue Donuts

A favorite takeout place that we rely on is Seattle Fish Guys. Often we just pick up an entrée or two as a treat to break the monotony of my usual cooking. But every now and then we get the Guys’ specialty that they created during the early pandemic days when their in-café dining was first shut down: A set of meal kits called Fish 4 Dayz. Centered on a wide variety of their fresh seafood offerings, the kits change weekly. The Guys have been offering kits now for 57 consecutive weeks.

A really nice feature is that they promote other small local food vendors by including their wares in the meal kits, especially desserts and pastries. This week our kits included Milkvue Donuts! If these flower-shaped gems look familiar, it’s because I sketched some last September too, which means I haven’t had any Milkvue Donuts since then! As you can see, I couldn’t wait until after the sketch was finished to start eating the matcha green tea one, which, along with a lavender one on my orange Fiestaware plate made a perfect secondary triad.

Not yet devoured... at the time the photo was taken.

Milkvue Donuts

9/10/20 Clockwise from left: Fruity Pebbles, Matcha Tea and Ube donuts from Milkvue

Seattle Fish Guys, purveyor of fresh fish and readymade seafood meals, have been our life saver during these monotonous pandemic months when an occasional takeout meal is our only change of pace. We used to get takeout from the Guys often even in the Before Times, but we’ve found ourselves there more frequently since they started offering meal “kits” during corona times: all the seafood-based ingredients and accompaniments for complete meals, including easy instructions that even I can follow.

Nom-nom! I polished off the green one as soon as the sketch was done!

Last week when we picked up our kits, I was surprised and delighted when I was handed a whole box of Milkvue Donuts! The kits usually come with cakes or cookies made by local bakeries that Fish Guys have partnered with, but we’d never gotten donuts before. Milkvue, a small Gig Harbor shop, uses a blend that includes rice flour, which gives the donuts a softer, chewier texture than typical raised donuts. You know me – I’m always too hungry to put a sketch between myself and food (for example, have you ever seen a sketch of those delicious seafood meals I’ve just been talking about? Of course not). I scarfed a donut down immediately, but I had enough forethought to save the prettiest ones to sketch the next day.

I’ve eaten a few donuts in my life (and even sketched some), but I must say that these Milkvue donuts may be the best ever – and certainly the most gorgeous. It’s possible that this still life took more colors than I’ve ever used in a single sketch.