The Fried Dough Ho

It was an odd night at Yoshi’s in San Franciso. I was actually hanging out in the lobby area, selling jewelry in an attempt by ArtNowSF to host an evening of art and music. Sadly, most of the people arriving at the jazz music venue that evening were more interested in whomever was performing that evening than my jewelry, the amazing glassblowers, the guerrilla t-shirt designers and graffiti artists. We artists sat there, occasionally peddling a trinket here or a bauble there, but mostly we were left to our own devices.

Fortunately, the waitstaff were pretty accommodating in providing service and after a brief chat with the chef, I was quickly satisfied with a really incredible lobster salad. I had read about a warm doughnut through Michael Bauer’s review on SFGate. He was fairly enthusiastic about them and for a professional critic to specifically name a fried dough as worthy, made it that much more intriguing for me.

And while they were enjoyable, I am not sure they are quite as superlative as Bauer seemed to think. What he said was, “Her warm doughnuts – better than fresh-out-of-the-oven Krispy Kremes – are served with a creamy whiskey sauce.” It is no surprise that I don’t particularly think that Krispy Kremes — fresh-out-of-the-oven or otherwise — are especially noteworthy, so that might have been him just filling fodder in his column space. And mine were not served with a creamy whiskey sauce, but a coffee-flavored sauce that showed no hint of alcohol. And there was a separate shot glass of strawberry sauce with a chocolate-covered Pocky stick there for — well, it was there for something; I’m not quite sure what.

The powdered-sugar-dusted pillows were fluffy and warm, but I also found then surprisingly dense and leaden. I am very curious as to what sort of batter or dough was used for the confection. They weren’t bad, necessarily, but just heavier than I anticipated. If a fried dough is going to be cakey, than it should be rich and tender and these were not. The rumor is that they no longer exist on the menu and perhaps that is a good thing.