FatManSeoul

Well, ok, make that more like 8 doughnuts.  Dunkin’ Donuts is going global by introducing 6 new donuts and 2 croquettes to their lineup:  Greek yogurt filled (Greece – who’dve  thunk it!), lentil curry croquette and chocolate glazed with lentils donut (India), kimchi croquette (Korea), olive oil and garlic donut and coffee roll (Spain), and the bean old fashioned and bean filled donuts of Japan.

muchas gracias, dunkin' donuts!

The good news is that some of these are much better than you’d expect.  The Greek yogurt filled donut doesn’t have the full flavor of real greek yogurt, but it does have that yogurt tang to the filling.  Kimchi and lentil croquettes are competent, although they still taste pretty much identical to the ones you find at Paris Baguette and Tour le Jour and just about every other bakery in Korea.   The other Indian donut is too overpowered by the chocolate glaze to have much lentil flavor (we’re inclined to think this is a good thing) while the bean-y-ness of the “콩” flavored old fashioned is pretty subdued.   As a matter of fact, only two donuts impressed us particularly, albeit in equal and opposite directions.  Let’s start with the good, shall we?

The garlic and olive oil coffee roll was an unexpected success. Although the garlic flavor could never be mistaken for anything but artificial, it was largely non-offensive, like a little sprinkle of garlic salt on your morning toast. Combined with the sweet glaze, it actually made for a fun sweet-salty interplay of flavors. Best of all, there was a real drizzle of olive oil over the whole thing before glazing, adding a little bit of rich olive taste and an intriguing mouth-feel to the donut. It’s actually . . . well, kind of edible. We might be tempted to order this once in a while, if they were out of our traditional favorites.
Equally intriguing, but not in a good way, was the mysterious and coy bean-filled Japanese donut. Fatman was certainly curious ~ Koreans already use beans, mostly black beans, in a wide variety of foods with often tasty results . . .

But what kind of cruel trick is this donut?!? Where usually one finds a nice Bavarian creme or splodge of jam was an incomprehensibly flavored sludge. We wracked our brain (and frantically scraped our tongue) for answers. The Korean ad campaign and information identifies it as 콩, or bean. That’s pretty non-specific, so we looked for further clues. The bag it was served in was labeled “소이” Ok. Soy. Soy beans. But that still didn’t explain the unconquerable awfulness assaulting our taste buds. Then, we looked down on our tray and saw a little description of each donut, and learned the terrible truth: 낫또. That’s right. DD made a natto-cream donut and foisted it upon the innocent. NATTO!

Now, this is not an objection to natto, per se. We actually kind of enjoy the stringy, oozy, gooey beans. But this donut just isn’t right . . .the natto has been mashed into some kind of mushy paste, loosing the distinctive texture. Do you know what that leaves you? The flavor, mashed and masked with whatever sweet additives, preservatives, and miscellaneous junk it takes to turn it into a donut filling. This was wrong, wrong, WRONG on every level.
It was so wrong, we encourage you to try it yourself. Or at least foist it on some unsuspecting friend whose horrified response you can videotape.