Here in New England, Dunkin’ Donuts has quite a monopoly. Which is – let’s face it – a pretty good thing.
You feel like you’re home when you see one on every corner. And the familiar tastes and smells do wonders to remind you of home when you stumble across one in some far-away land, like Virginia or Dubai.
Photo credit: YouTube/Simple Cooking Channel
So what are the other choices? What else is out there?
We all know Krispy Kreme didn’t fare too well in the Boston area. Personally, the donuts are just too sweet for me. Like a tiny bit of dough coated in an entire sugar bowl.
Honey Dew. Meh. If there’s nothing else, and I really need a fix, they can suffice.
But if you head south to Rhode Island, west out to the other end of New York State, or of course up north to Canada, you will find another wonderful, amazing donut chain that can – at times – make you cry out in delight when you see one of them from the highway.
I’m talking about Tim Horton’s, a Canadian chain that has stolen my donut-loving heart. Light, fluffy Timbits (aka Munchkins to the Dunkin’ lover in all of us), tasty sandwiches on nice baguettes, and flavorful coffee that lives up to their motto toujours frais – “always fresh.”
This morning, I drove a little over an hour to Woonsocket, Rhode Island, to see if they lived up the expectations I had built up in visits to shops in Toronto, Toledo, and Rochester, and, mm-mm, did they ever.
I will always be a fan of DD, but a piece of my heart now belongs to TH.
Kip Wilson is a freelance writer from Boston, MA. She earned her Ph.D. in German from SUNY Albany, and has lived in both Germany and Austria. She is a regular contributor to FACES magazine for children, and loves traveling to new places and writing about them. Some of her favorite topics include language, food, history, and travelling with small children.
