The SO is out sailing and I find myself out wandering the city in search of....pretty much anything. I find I'm wandering the 24th street corridor from Mission down to Harrison and beyond. So it was that I passed by Dynamo Donuts.
I'd heard about this place for awhile now but it's in a part of town I don't frequent much and it had slid to the back of my radar. Thus is seemed kismet that I came across it now and on a whim decided to chow down on one of their donuts. They were serving 6 flavors on this day at $3 a pop, so of course I decide to go for the bacon maple donut. Lo and behold the one gentleman in front of me also orders the same thing and I hear the girl behind the counter say "congratulations you got our last one." I think to myself--of course he did--and already I know this probably isn't going to go well. I sigh when she asks me what I'd like and say "was that really the last one?" "Yes it was." I sigh again and say okay I'll try the caramel apple and plop down my money.
It's a light cake donut with bits of granny smith apples in the mix, covered with caramel and crushed peanuts and a dusting of sugar/brown sugar on the bottom. The donut part was light, airy and cakey all at the same time and I did like it. I don't know if the granny smiths were the right choice as they have a bit of an unsweet bite to them and even though there was sugar coated on the bottom this was not all that sweet of a donut. And considering some of the things I eat I think I know what sweet is. The other problem with this was the caramel--it was more on the burnt side and let a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth that was not pleasant. After a couple bites it seemed to be the only thing my taste buds could focus on. As for the peanuts on top, they give it some texture and saltiness but don't help masking the bitter caramel.
To say I was bummed is a bit of an understatement--first missing out on the bacon maple (which gets all the press) then ending up with one that wasn't quite up to snuff. When you are charging that much for one donut they all need to be winners, sadly this one was not. I wanted to like them, because what's not to like about donuts but I just couldn't. If I lived in the neighborhood or somebody brought some other flavors to work I'd try them out but unless I'm wandering around there again I probably won't be making a special trip over there just for a donut.
