Holey Shit! Top Pot Glazed Old-Fashioneds Set the Donut Standard

Welcome to the inaugural edition of "Holey Shit!" Once a week we'll roam the city searching for carb-laden foods that feature a hole in the middle. There will be lots of donuts and bagels, but if you have another favorite food that lacks a center, let us know and we'll check it out.

The Hole: Glazed old-fashioned.

The Shit: Before I get to the donut, let's start with a little philosophy lesson. Plato was an ancient Greek thinker who wrote about a guy named Socrates who hits on younger men and talks incessantly on esoteric topics like "What is knowledge?"

Plato thought that for everything we humans experience on Earth--love, happiness, chairs, donuts--a perfect version, known as the form, existed in another realm. The love, happiness, chairs, and donuts here are merely shadows of their perfect selves.

That brings us to the Top Pot Glazed Old-Fashioned.

It turns out Plato was wrong. The perfect version of a donut does exist on earth. Top Pot's tag line "hand-forged doughnuts" seems to perfectly describe what you're eating. The old-fashioned has heft. While being fried, the outer layer turns into a thick, crunchy crust. But somehow that doesn't keep the cake inside from being moist and tender.

And most importantly, Top Pot does not screw around with the glaze. No hint of icing here. The assumption seems to be that if you wanted plain, you'd ask for it. Hunks of hardened sugar decorate the edges.

All that said, Top Pot has one major drawback.

"Can I get this heated up?" I asked.

"Sorry, if we did that the line would take forever," responded the guy behind the counter.

He's probably right (and wasn't an asshole about it). And even at room temperature, Top Pot's glazed old-fashioned is a donut experience to remember. But eating one warm is downright spiritual. Cross your fingers they're just coming out of the fryer when you arrive.

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