Get Ready for a Doughnut Orgasm in Your Mouth

Photo via Doughnut Plant's Instagram

On today, National Doughnut Day, it is important that we all reflect on the brave, historic journey depicted in Homer's Odyssey. There's much to be learned from the classic Greek epic, which centers on the patriarch of the Simpson family returning home from Shelbyville after his quest to find the perfect doughnut. The important lesson? Doughnuts are important. People should die for them.

I'm still on a quest for the perfect doughnut myself. After growing up on Dunkin Donuts, when traveling down South one summer in the early 00's, I came across my first glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut & was all "OH...Dunkin Donuts doughnuts are actually kinda lame." Since then, I've been exposed to Tim Horton's. I skipped Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, OR because fuck that line but I have no doubt that their doughnuts are good. I read so on the internet. Here in Brooklyn, I've never had a bad doughnut from Peter Pan or Dough.

Now word's come out via Twitter that the much-heralded Doughnut Plant, with one location in the LES & one in Chelsea, is coming to Flatbush Ave in October, taking over the former Yummy Taco space & putting them right in the heart of the food boom around Barclays Center. Twenty years after he started baking in a LES tenement basement, owner Mark Isreal is finally crossing the bridge to cash in on those sweet Brooklyn benjamins.

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The Barclays Area is About to Get a Little Sweeter

Photo via Sugar Factory

Back in March of 2010, when construction first began on the Barclays Center, developers swore up & down that once the arena opened up, the local economy was TOTALLY going to boom! Businesses in the surrounding area would be FLOODED with arena-goers. Real estate magnate Michael Pintchik, who owns a number of buildings surrounding Barclays, was going to make bank by bringing new & exciting businesses to his properties. Neighborhood REVITALIZATION!

Flash forward to 2014 and, almost two years after the rusty stadium first opened, it hasn't exactly panned out that way. Sure there's a Shake Shack slated to open up soon in a Pintchik building on Flatbush across from the arena, but Shake Shack does not a neighborhood make. In the last few days though, there've been a few announcements that hint at things picking up in the area.

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Taco Santo Was My Favorite Explorer in 4th Grade

Hey guys? Remember when BBQ was the hot new thing in Park Slope? Get with the times, jerks. That's SO 2013. These days, it's all about the taco. As one of life’s most versatile foods, the taco's become SUPER TRENDY. GET ON BOARD. Though I'm already on board and love tacos like I love my own mother, I for one can not wait until dosas or some shit eventually bump tacos from their mighty perch. Then we can finally pass the DREAM Act.

In Park Slope, there was the 2012-2013 BBQ revolution. We had nothing. Then we had everything. It all started with Ft Reno. Then there was Fletcher's and Dinosaur and Morgan's. Different styles. Different levels of quality. Talk about filling a five-dollar whore with a forty-five dollar penis! As a result, BBQ got way overblown in Park Slope and  forerunner Ft Reno lasted just two years, with owner Jacques Gautier (also of Palo Santo) deciding to shut Ft Reno down at the end of 2013 & reopen the space on February 1st, with taco-flavored kisses for everyone, as the creatively-named "Taco Santo."

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A Tale of Two Bars

Bars bars bars bars bars bars bars. Every time you blink there's a new friggin bar in Park Slope. I wish I could keep up but I just can't, or more specifically, my liver wallet can't. Does that make me sad? I guess. Case in point: two new bars opened up last week. Both places--a wine bar/Turkish tapas spot called Pierre Loti & a "cocktail bar" named Parish--are TOTALLY CLASSY. Since I love class & need to keep up & can never find enough places in which to consume alcohol, I paid both a visit over the past week.

First up was Pierre Loti, a NYC mini-chain with locales in Chelsea, Midtown & Union Sq. It's named after some French dude. DON'T CARE. Now they've got a bar on 5th Ave & St Marks, in the space that used to host the failed Canaille wine bar. Park Slope is Pierre’s Loti's first trek across the bridge & let's be honest here...if you're a bar/restaurant expanding out of Manhattan into Brooklyn for the first time, you're likely looking at Williamsburg or Park Slope. Park Slope LOVES a good wine bar. Wine bars are TOTALLY CLASSY...an environment where breeders can freely mingle with ballers. It kind of makes sense that Pierre Loti would open up their first Brooklyn joint here.

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Just Cheez It, Alf.

It's like a cheezy, iconic, gay Brit once said: "Saturday night's alright for fighting. Saturday night's alright. Alright. Alright. Woo Hoo Ooh Ooh."

It's like a cheezy, hacky teenager once said in the shitty follow-up to the shitty song that made her famous: "This Saturday we're gonna do it bigger than we ever have before."

It's like a cheezy bunch of 70’s era Scottish teenybopper heartthrobs once said: "It's just a Saturday night."

Guess what I did on Saturday night. Nope. Not cheese. Not even heroin. Nope. I didn't go to TGI Fridays and delight in the splendor that is their kitsch-adorned walls. TGI Fridays is more of a Friday thing. Since it was a Saturday smack dab in the middle of a pussy-snowstorm-induced three-day weekend, a few friends & I decided to travel all the way up the hills of Park Slope to 7th Ave, walking right past all the perfectly fine bars on 5th Ave.

The reason: A brand spanking new bar that just opened up in the old Bar 4 space (RIP and/or I never went there). The moniker: "American Cheez."

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