wenDONUTopia: Baltics and Russia

Holy Donut

Web Site: FaceBook - Holy Donut
Address: Vilnius, Lithuania

Rating:

On a trip to the Baltic States and Russia, we made a quick visit to Holy Donut— in Vilnius on the edge of the Old City where both tourists and locals roam. (They call Vilnius the “Jerusalem of Europe” and there are 80 Catholic Churches in town. But the shoppe’s name has no correlation to the religiosity of the place).

We stopped in mid morning and had to wait in line— but there were a myriad of interesting flavors to choose among.

There were translations ( from Lithuanian) and the staff spoke English. But, due to the line, we just did a quick point and buy— as friendly donut research conversation would have been inappropriate.

All of the flavors presented were iced cake varieties— but larger and more solid than in the States. I chose a chocolate glazed with hazelnuts. The glaze was thick and delicious and the donut was a wonderful consistency. I ate enough to assess and would have had more later but the day was blistering hot and the glaze began to melt away.

Highly recommended.

Ze Donats

Web Site: http://zedonats.lv/
Address: Riga, Latvia

Rating:

Our next stop was in Riga, Latvia.

Ze Donats is open from 10-8 on Saturdays, so when we arrived at 5:20 we expected a full array of choices. We were sadly mistaken; we had promised the concierge a caramel donut and there were none to be had. But there were several left of chocolate with hazelnut, chocolate with non pareilles, melon, coconut, peppermint, white chocolate, lemon, strawberry and more— all cake style.

The dozen I purchased (for the concierge— wink wink) greatly diminished their stock.

I sampled a chocolate glazed. The glaze was good with high quality chocolate. But the overall donut was just mediocre— kind of dry and not at all crunchy on the outside.

Benefit of the doubt, perhaps the late hour attributed to my disappointment. Riga is a really cool place and it deserves a really outstanding donut shop or two. Unfortunately, that is not what I experienced at Ze Donats,

Sõõrikukohvik Donuts

Web Site: http://soorikukohvik.ee/
Address: Kentmanni21, 10116 Tallinn, Estonia

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We had a less than a 24-hour visit in Tallinn—but went out of our way to ensure we visited the famous Soorikukohvik Donuts.

We taxied over after touring late in the day and discovered these simple powdered sugar treats. They were straightforward, no fuss, “tell it like it is” donuts (very consistent with our spunky tour guide’s style—kind of “take it or leave it”). Good, but not earth-shatteringly amazing. We also purchased a chocolate glazed but (surprisingly) did not taste it.

Munkki (Finnish) Donuts

Address: Multiple stalls at the daily market, Helsinki, Finland

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We had less than a 24-hour visit in Helsinki—but went out of our way to ensure we sampled the famous Munkki. We learned that the best bet in the neighborhood of our hotel was one of multiple stands at the Helsinki daily market where they are made fresh. We had a fairly early departure time for St. Petersburg (9:00 am) so visited the market shortly after opening time (at 7:00 am) and the munkki at several stalls were not quite ready yet. Still, we scored munkki at two stalls—comparable to long johns dusted with sugar and filled with raspberry (or perhaps gooseberry, knowing this part of the world) jam. They were delicious and authentic.

We also dropped by a neighborhood bakery (and have included a photo of the munkki here); but those were fancied up and after a small bite (banana glaze), we decided they were not to our liking.

No....they are NOT filled with possum!

Pyshechnaya Donuts

Web Site: none
Address:
Pyshechnaya on Bolshaya, Konyushennaya
St. Petersburg, Russia

Rating:

We had read that a favorite Soviet era fried dough treat was Pyshki (in St. Petersburg) and Ponchiki (in Moscow). These are basically the same type of donut (with different names in each city)—a traditional cake donut, served warm and dusted liberally in powdered sugar. In the day, they were served from kiosks. They are still somewhat popular today but harder to locate.

St. Petersburg is not a small city and there are language issues. So, we aspired toward a donut that was fairly close to the hotel. Score! We learned from the concierge (after checking with three of them with varying sets of directions) that Pyshechnaya on Bolshaya was only a block away. The spelling shown here is transliterated so, we were in for somewhat of a treasure hunt when we went in search of Pyshki in St. Petersburg. We were about to give up when we noticed a long line outside a storefront and decoded the Cyrillic plaque in front of the building to discover… Pyshki!

There was only one flavor and they were sold in orders of three each. We got in line and hoped for the best and we were not disappointed. Even though we visited Pyshechnaya on Bolshaya

only one hour before a fancy dinner, we couldn’t resist gobbling down the entire crunchy and sugary on the outside, cakey and warm on the inside Pyshki (only 1). It was delicious and, by far, the very best donut we secured across the Baltic States and Russia in the summer of 2018. Wow. Delicious and memorable. Could we have eaten the other two in the order? You bet—it took remarkable restraint to stick with one only. When in St Petersburg, Do. Not. Miss. Pyshechnaya on Bolshaya. So delicious!

Te Samyeponchiki

Web Site: https://ruspish.ru/
Address: VDNKh Park
Inside VDNK mall, second floor
Moscow, Russia

Rating:

On to Moscow, to see if we could taste the difference between Pyshki and Ponchiki. These are basically the same type of donut (with different names in each city)—a traditional cake donut, served warm and dusted liberally in powdered sugar. In the day, they were served from kiosks. They are still somewhat popular today but harder to locate.

This location challenge became almost comical in Moscow. After alternative suggested routes from the concierge, our tour leader, and our two local Moscow tour guides, we decided we would take the plunge and navigate the famous Moscow Metro to secure an authentic ponchiki. We were told to take the orange line out for 30 minutes to the Vdnka station, and then it was a short walk. We took the Metro (an adventure in itself) and then took a wrong turn (at first, unbeknownst to us)—so went about 7,000 steps out of our way. When we realized that time was running short and we were seemingly headed in the wrong direction, we started asking for help. The first two unknowing Muscovites tried to help us—but between their Russian only directions and our cluelessness, we were stuck. Then, luckily, a young man came along with impeccable English and he pointed us in the proper direction (we had emerged from the Metro station on the wrong side)! After another 3, 000 steps, we stumbled upon the Cosmonaut Museum (!) in Cosmo Park (which after all that, was only about a 5 minute walk from the Metro).

Our notes had indicated that there were several Ponchiki kiosks within the park...

maybe we should go that way?

...but they were nowhere to be seen and we were getting tired. So, we checked out the mall (presumably the site of another kiosk) and walked past all the empty storefronts to discover (tada!) a storefront with Ponchiki on the second floor! The name of this store literally means "exactly those donuts"!

After all that, the donut didn’t really meet our expectations. It was warm but somewhat stale. Same basic concept as the pyshki in St Petersburg but (sorry, Muscovites), simply not as tasty. Perhaps had we had more time we would have ventured deeper into the park and discovered more of the real thing.