Peter Pan Donuts, NYC

Yup, yet another day, another donut.  Whatever city I am in, donuts seem to seek me out.  Certainly, this is helped by the that my offices have a donut rotation, where someone brings in donuts from a place of their choosing every week.  But also, random parties with extra donuts just seem to regularly happen around me.  I rarely seek out the donuts, they come to me.

Yet, when I was staying in New York for a while this summer, I actually sought out donuts myself.  I wanted to see if there were other noteworthy donuts, besides Doughnut Plant.  So I did my research.  I had, well, plenty of options.  But one, Peter Pan Donuts, was located near where I was staying in Brooklyn, and got great reviews, so I assumed it would be my destination.

And then, random donuts kept showing up at the office, and I never made it to get a donut of my own accord.  Until I returned to New York in the fall, and the craving for a good donut hit.

And thus, Peter Pan it was.  

Peter Pan makes a variety of yeast and cake donuts.  All the classics, plus some upgraded ones, but nothing particularly wild or unique.  Yeasted donuts start with the standard honey dip, sugared, or frosted and sprinkle topped.  Filled versions had, lemon, blueberry, strawberry, or Bavarian cream.  Jelly donuts could come plain, sugared, or powdered sugared.  More fun is the crumb topped and cream filled red velvet or old fashioned, or other varieties with cream filling and a coating.  Cake options span from plain/cinnamon/glazed/powedered/coconut'ed old fashioned, to chocolate cake, to more interesting red velvet or even sour cream.  Oh, and don't forget the specialty donuts like a boston cream, several types of eclair, crullers with several toppings, or, my dad's all time favorite, the jelly stick.

I had one each, cake and raised, to really evaluate.  The raised was exceptional, and I'd gladly return for more and more of these!

Donut Box.

No pink box from this  shop, but a relatively classic and classy bakery label let us know what goodies were inside.

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake. $1.95.

The first donut I tried was a cake donut, which isn't normally my preferred donut (generally, I go for raised over cake).  But if I'm having a cake donut, an old fashioned or buttermilk based donut definitely far exceed regular cake donuts.  And, it was blueberry?  And glazed?  Now, that's a good combo, even for a cake donut.

It was fine.  Lightly glazed, not so sweet it took over.  It was clearly studded with lots of bits of blueberry, with visible blue bits throughout.  Mild blueberry flavor.  Dense in the right way inside, yet quite moist, and lightly crisp from the glaze.  But ... I didn't detect a buttermilk tang, and I was really hoping for that.

Overall, an absolutely fine cake donut, but didn't deliver in the "special" department for me, that is needed to take a cake donut above ***.  So, a strong ***, but, still just ***.

Yeasted White Cream Coconut. $1.95.

The next donut I tried was a raised one, and not one I picked for myself.  When I was stuck in a meeting when Peter Pan donuts arrived, I asked him to snag me something, and this was his selection.  It likely isn't what I would have picked (so much coconut!), but actually, it turned out to be absolutely fabulous.

The coconut on top was standard shredded non-toasted but likely sweetened coconut.  It was very generously applied, which I thought would be too much, but actually, it totally worked.  Just, a nice coconut flavor, that went so well with the fluffy sweet frosting.  ***+.

The cream frosting blew me away.  I expected fairly generic very sweet buttercream, but it was actually just really, really good.  Vanilla flavored I think?  It was so soft and fluffy, even though it was fairly old by the time I had it late in the afternoon.  It was sweet, but absolutely not cloying.  Really, really great cream. ****+.

Yeasted White Cream Coconut: Underside.

So, what about the donut itself?

Here you can see that this was actually a ring donut (surprise! Didn't it look like a filled donut?).  It had a great pocket of cream in the middle, in addition to the topping.  Given how much I loved this cream, this was a huge win for me.  

The donut was perfectly fried.  Very lightly crisp on the outside, golden brown, and so, so, so light and fluffy and airy inside.  Great flavor to it, didn't taste oily nor greasy.  This is really as good as a basic yeasted donut can get.  ****+.

Overall, I loved everything about this.  The quality of the donut, the frosting, everything.  I'd get it again in a heartbeat, and it made me immediately want to try more donuts from Peter Pan!  ****+, really nearly a perfect *****.

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Amici's East Coast Pizzeria

Update Review, October 2023

A bunch of years ago, I wrote about Amici's East Coast Pizzeria, and, at the time, all I reviewed was the lackluster meatballs (see below).  I haven't sought out Amici's since, and never was that excited by their pizza, but recently attended an event catered by Amici's, so, pizza it was.

Our hosts ordered an assortment of pizzas (all large), and I tried a couple.  Note that this was just a few weeks after I returned from living in NY for a month, and, let's just say, it wasn't even in the same ballpark.  

Trentino. $42.75.

"Parmesan, crumbled feta, baby spinach, red onions, pancetta, herbs, meyer lemon olive oil, mozzarella (no tomato sauce)."

I did not know what kind of pizza this was when I grabbed a slice of the Trentino, I was simply drawn in by the red onions and crispy bits of what looked like delicious pork product.

The crispy bits of delicious pork product turned out to be just that - super crispy, very flavorful, quite salty, bits of pancetta.  I did quite like the pancetta.  There was a nice amount of it on one side, but the other half really was sparse.  Not exactly consistent in the topping application.

The red onion and baby spinach were good, they went well with the pancetta.  I'm not really one for feta though, so that brought this down a few notches for me, and, although I do think the lack of red sauce made sense, and let the toppings shine, it did eat a bit dry.

The crust was mediocre, not particularly good, not an interesting flavor, nor great chew, nor anything redeeming, but at least it wasn't soggy.  Lower end mediocre.  The cheese was average.

Overall, a pretty generic and mediocre piece of pizza, but, the pancetta and onions really were tasty.  **** for those, **+ otherwise, *** overall.

Trentino. $42.75.

"Parmesan, crumbled feta, baby spinach, red onions, pancetta, herbs, meyer lemon olive oil, mozzarella (no tomato sauce)."

A few weeks later, I was at another event with Amici's pizza, and was drawn back in by the memory of the tasty pancetta.  It was again good, but not quite as memorable, and I was more distracted by the strong feta and such lackluster crust this time.  **.

Hawaiian. $35.75.

"Honey-cured ham, pineapple, mozzarella, tomato sauce."

I know hawaiian pizza can be polarizing for some people.  I am not those people.  I don't generally go for pineapple in other places (meh to pineapple in sweet and sour dishes, meh to pineapple on ice cream, meh to pineapple in fruit salad, etc), but, I do like the sweetness with ham on pizza.  That said, I did not like this pizza.

The crust was the same as the previous slice, pretty meh.  The sauce was uninteresting.  Cheese mediocre.  Ham was like Canadian bacon, really porky, and tough.  I didn't care for it at all.  Pineapple was fine, just canned crushed pineapple.

Overall, just not good, and I didn't enjoy this at all.  *.

Combo. $42.75.

"Pepperoni, meatball, bacon, sautéed mushrooms, black olives, mozzarella, tomato sauce."

I didn't actually try the combo, this is just here for illustrative purposes.  The distribution of ingredients was really not ideal, soooo many black olives everywhere!

Original Review, April 2022

I don't really eat that much pizza these days.   This makes me a complete mystery to my parents, who have pizza night every single week, without fail, and love having the leftovers to eat for several days.  More than half the days of a week my dad eats pizza.  But me?  Eh.  

Back when I first moved to San Francisco, pizza was definitely heavy in my rotation, and that meant basically one of two places: Little Star (which I've reviewed several times before) or Patxi's (generally when in the South Bay because it was close to where I lived).  Always for deep dish.  Little Star cornmeal crust deep dish really is a special thing.  But I mostly moved on from frequenting the Mission (where I'd go to Little Star, despite the epic waits), and mostly just don't crave pizza (of course, I went through a thin crust Delfina phase, and had to check out the hype that was Tony's too at some point).

But even if I don't care about pizza, Amici's has been on my radar, a chain with locations all throughout the bay area, one of which I used to walk by regularly.  I remember having it a few times, always for delivery at an event and thinking, "meh".  Standard, "East Coast" style pizza.  Bo-ring.

During the pandemic Amici's pivoted, shuttering several of their locations and instead moving to takeout/delivery only, from ghost or cloud kitchens.  It is from one of those kitchens, located at 60 Moris street, that I finally tried Amici's again.

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Beef Meatballs. $5.75.

Meh.

All I can say about these.

The sauce really had no depth.  Just, tomato sauce.  Actually, I think, pizza sauce?  It was no different from any grocery store jarred sauce.

The meatballs were like what I remember the mini meatballs in Spaghettios or Chef Boyardee being like, just, bigger. That is, they were mushy, not spongy exactly, but, soft in an odd way.  Eh.

The meatballs were served with no cheese or anything to jazz this up (ok, partial point for some herb garnish?).

I absolutely would not get again and was rather shocked at how low quality this dish seemed to be.  Only good with some penne and cheese, if you were, you know, craving canned-tasting meatballs.

**.

Caesar Salad (with Anchovies). $7.95.

"Crisp romaine, housemade croutons, freshly grated parmesan. Served with Caesar dressing. Complimentary anchovy fillets added upon request."

I moved on to the caesar salad, at least a legit offering with anchovies optional.  The salad came nicely packaged up, with the croutons and dressing on the side, so not to get soggy.  Points for that.

Salad Base: SO MUCH CHEESE.

There was, um, a lot of cheese on top.  Literally, a cup of cheese on here.  That said, it was indeed fresh grated, it wasn't dried out, and it was a decent quality, had some nuttiness to it.  Above average for a generic pizza place, and clearly they didn't skimp.  The meatballs really could have used some of this generosity.

Below the cheese was ... the ANCHOVIES!  Yes, you can ask for anchovies, complimentary, which I most definitely did.  Like the cheese, there were actually tons of anchovies.  Salty, briny, exactly what you'd expect from anchovies.  I adored these, and was so glad to see them on here.

And finally the lettuce, standard caesar base of torn romaine.  Seemed fresh, crisp, decent portion, good size chunks.

The base of this salad was remarkably solid, I was rather shocked to be honest, solidly above average.

***+.  

House Made Croutons.

I appreciated that the croutons were on the side, even though I didn't ask for this.  Yay to not soggy croutons.

The croutons, just like the salad base, kinda surprised me in their quality.  The portion was generous, the cubes were extremely well seasoned (tons of Italian herbs!), they were very crunchy but not too crisp (clearly lots of olive oil used!), and they tasted, well, like a pizzeria.

These were very good croutons. Again, ***+.

Caesar Dressing.

And finally, the dressing.

This is something I'm always polar on with Caesar.  There are two styles of Caesar dressing usually, the thinner, vinaigrette style, and the nice thick mayo style.  And of course some are loaded with parmesan.  Some use real anchovy.

My personal preference is the thick mayo style, minimal parmesan in the dressing, and bring on the anchovy.

This was somewhere in the middle.  It was a vinaigrette style, but a thicker one.  It was loaded with grated parmesan.  I'm not sure about anchovy.  The flavor was decent, not too tangy, and very cheese forward.  Certainly not my favorite Caesar dressing, but, good.  And seemed quite possibly house made?

***.

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