In the past year there have been very few opportunities to get away. Between my work and lockdowns, long weekends are a rarity. However, way back in February, we managed to find a chunk of time and drive further than Adelaide city limits for a little holiday.
I fell asleep as soon as we hit the freeway, heading east out of Adelaide. Having just finished a run of night shifts I was overdue for sleep and so missed most of the drive. Meningie wasn’t our holiday destination, but merely en route to Robe, where we were meeting some friends for a long weekend. I woke up as we drove up to the main street of Meningie, famished and slightly sleep hungover. The town was thriving for a Thursday lunchtime, clearly a stopping point for many tourists.
Now, usually where tourists and their caravans are then bakeries closely follow – and I wasn’t disappointed. Just off the main stretch, set back less than 100 metres, was a bustling bakery. The queue stretched out the door, with many gathered around little tables, brown bags in their hands. Such a queue is usually a positive sign for the quality of baked goods to come, but how deceived we were.
The donut was terrible. Perhaps, it was one leftover from the day, or week, before but I don’t think I would waste my money trying to figure out if it was just a bad batch. However, the seagulls didn’t seem to have as high of donut standard and I’m told, from a non-gull informant, that the finger bun wasn’t too bad.
Aesthetics —8.5
This donut was immediately appealing on looks alone, proving you can't judge a donut by its cover. The sprinkles were large, bright and attractive. The lopsided nature of the diameter gave it a certain homemade charm and the donut was of generous proportions.
Topping —2.5
The icing was terrible. It was pink, stale, and very strongly "berry flavoured" - I'm certain the chemicals in the icing alone could be used as cleaning products. The texture of the icing was grainy and the only redeeming quality to this topping was that the sprinkles retained some of their crunch. Five minutes after taking a bite of the icing I could still taste that chemical, berry sweetness dissolving away the back of my throat.
Dough —3
For me dough is one of the best parts of a donut – and this dough was thoroughly disappointing. It was very yeasty, with a salty overlay, and yet still had a cheap, chemical sweetness on the first taste. The dough tasted old, not at all fresh, and the flavour clung around the palate like a bad film.
Texture —1.5
It is hard to find a redeeming quality to this donut's texture. The dough was dense, dry, and stale, not helped by a grainy texture to the icing. The only positive was that the sprinkles were crunchy and added some semi-fresh texture to one of the driest donuts I’ve ever had.
Overall
3.9
Only For Survival
This was a very negative donut experience. I consumed the minimal amount of the donut to get information for the blog, before then chucking it in the bin. It would have been the lowest-rated donut to date if the aesthetics hadn't been as good as they were. Sadly, the bad taste stuck around and the memory of such a poor donut has too.
