The Donut Man, Glendora CA

 

They were nothing to write home about. There I said it.  I know a lot of people out there are going to completely disagree with me since the Donut Man in Glendora seems to be loved to mythic proportions, but I just wasn’t that impressed.

After much planning and anxious anticipation, a few close donut-loving friends and I decided to make the long drive to Glendora to try the famed Donut Man creations.  Donut Man is most well known for their 2 seasonal doughnuts – fresh strawberry and fresh peach. These seasonal creations are lightly glazed fried yeast doughnuts that are opened like a Pac-man and stuffed to the gills with fresh strawberry or peaches (depending on the season) and coated in a sweet glaze. The pictures alone (and there are plenty on the web) are completely mouth-watering and tantalizing enough to inspire those that do not live in Glendora or the surrounding area to make the drive.

Donut Man is open 24 hours. The shop is so popular and busy they churn out freshly baked donuts throughout the day.  The strawberry donuts were sold out the day we visited but there were endless rows of their fresh peach donuts.  We were most excited to try the infamous fresh peach donuts so once everyone had ordered and we found a bench to perch on and we all eagerly dove in.

 

Maybe it was the day, maybe it was the batch of peaches, but whatever the reason was these peaches were not ripe or sweet and instead were crunchy and bland. The donut itself was bland as well, but slightly enhanced by the sweet peach glaze.  If this were a peach jelly donut I probably would have liked it more since the only flavor came from the super sweet glaze.  Overall, we were all pretty disappointed with the fresh peach donut.

 

We also ordered an original glazed, raspberry cream cheese, maple bar and a chocolate coconut cake donut all of which were again disappointing. They were dry and pretty flavorless all around.

So did we like anything? Yes! The tiger tail was a standout among the donuts we ordered. Everyone loved the giant foot long tiger tail with its delicious ribbons of chocolate and cinnamon sugar. The donut itself was fluffy and sweet.

Another standout, surprisingly, was the buttermilk donut (pictured on the right). I generally find that buttermilk donuts tend to be dense, dry and crumbly, but the buttermilk donut at Donut Man was simple perfection. The donut was succulent with robust vanilla flavor. It was faintly sweet and wonderfully cakey.

 

In all fairness this was my one and only visit and perhaps Donut Man was having an off day, but with that said I don’t know that anything was good enough to entice me to make the drive back.

 

We came to get donut wasted, but left donut disenchanted.

 

DONUT MAN

915 E Rt 66
Glendora, CA 91740

(626) 335-9111