Return to Nomad Donuts

Alright, I just had to come back and give this place another shot...

Darlene's Zagat report on Nomad came out on Wednesday and while this place wasn't quite one week old into their soft opening, there was already a line at 10 am this past Saturday morning (and 17 up from 9 reviews from Y***)...

I sure hoped they had some donuts left by the time we hit the counter...

This dog was patiently waiting for his owner to come out while we waited in the warm sun for nearly 20 minutes. There was a mix of folks in line, from bro's, bears to hipsters and families plus canine companions. People were driving by and doing double takes at the line, probably wondering WTF people were in line for.


It looks like they expanded their drinks menu to include more coffee drinks as well as hot tea and water. They weren't quite ready to make iced drinks that day which bummed me out. We would get my caffeine fix later that morning. Their menu board for the donuts changes daily as well, as you can see by the entirely new set of flavors.



Here are the ones we didn't try...

The one on the right is unlabeled, which was a cinnamon "monkey bread" ($1). It was supposed to be "pullapart" but it was not really soft, which I associate with pullapart breads. It seemed as though the pieces were smashed into the pan and when baked, came out hard. No bueno.

We passed on the churros con chocolate donut...

Bert's Hammerhead (Zumbar coffee with a shot of espresso) which he really enjoyed.

Our box of hits and misses:


The misses were the donut holes which were rolled in coconut sugar. Since they were not warm, the sugar didn't really stick to them. In addition, they were rather smallish in size and dense. Not very fluffy at all.  They seemed like an afterthought and are something I would NOT get again.  Actually, these were TC's choice and I kind of felt bad since she didn't really like them. Bert just said "they sucked" as I was typing this paragraph.

The other miss was the monkeybread which I mentioned earlier.
The hits were the properly fried cake donuts. We just loved the texture of these. Below is the Apricot cardamom. While I'm not a total convert to the distinctive taste of cardamom, it does give this donut an "exotic" flavor paired with the thick and sweet apricot glaze.


Jalapeno with cheese and corn. This was a savory donut that we weren't sure we'd like. It turned out to be my favorite that day. The jalapeno flavor was very faint and only present in the glaze. I loved the cheese and corn mixed within this donut. You can see how crisp it is...

The Tom Kha (coconut, lemongrass and ginger) donut was a hit for Bert but a miss for me. It would have been nice to have the coconut flavor incorporated into the donut but it was only present as a topping. The lemongrass and ginger flavors were quite bold. It's not a flavor I would normally get, but for the sake of research, I wanted to give it a try.


The bottom of the donuts - look at that crust.  These are not light and fluffy donuts but neither are they leaden gut bombs. We savored these and ended up saving the apricot cardamom for later.


So there ya have it, twice in one week. Then I probably won't visit for another year (or sooner, heh heh). Try them early before the hype is my MO then again once they have their kinks worked out.

Previous visit to Nomad Donuts:
Yesterday!

Kirbie and Mr. K went the next day as well. Read about their visit here!

I wouldn't make going here a daily habit since it can get a bit pricey though.

As we were heading out of North Park that morning, we noticed that many streets were closed off. It turned out they were getting ready for the Toyland Parade. We even saw a vintage police car (early 60's) cruise by. Before heading out since we didn't want to be stuck here, we passed by this new (but not opened) place on the corner of 30th and Lincoln...

Looks like North Park will have two fancy donut places vying for customers, Nomad and this place with the rather unwieldy (but promising) moniker of Streetcar Merchants of Fried Chicken, Doughnuts and Coffee (note the real spelling of 'doughnuts')...Wondering when that place will open!