Fremont: Bun Appétit Donuts

I’ve been holding on to several photos from Bun Appétit that I’m finally ready to share.

I don’t like the newfangled “dump everything on” trend for donuts. I won’t name names. I love fruity pebbles, I don’t want an entire bowl of cereal on my donut. There’s something about the sugary glaze that makes cereal and toppings slightly moist. And I’m not a fan of things falling off a donut because they’re overloaded. that essentially defeats the purpose of putting it on a donut. I love mom and pop “regular” donuts. Specifically, blueberry donuts. Cake over yeast donuts. I love mom and pops. I am not mad at Krispy Kreme for their donuts, I’m mad they over-exposed themselves a decade ago.

Bun Appétit is located in the Centerville district of Fremont. That entire area, as well as other areas of the city, are getting invested in for housing. Specifically, tech-supported housing. There are battles being fought at City council meetings and over nextdoor. The cities want more of that revenue, and in-turn local communities are afraid of gentrification and ever-growing traffic problems. Fremont/Newark/Union City are right in the heart of bridge & 880 traffic connecting right to 238-mission. The cafe is on the bottom floor of a new apartment complex called Artist’s walk, right next to an Amtrak station.

There is street parking that I’ve never seen available. There are also designated store parking spots marked off separately from the apartment spots. Sometimes, I go do my dog supply across the street at Bogie’s and then cross over.

It’s a cafe, and during the day the cafe is filled with people and laptops, having meetings. It’s more quiet than neighboring, competing mega chains and also other local favorites like Suju’s. I give the coffee a 7/10 stars. I drink a lot of coffee but am in no-way a coffee critic.

They also sell Bay Area Favorite Ice Cream, Humphry Slocombe, named after characters from the old British Sitcom, Are You Being Served? The BEST ice cream they produce are the Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee, and Secret Breakfast (Bourbon & corn flakes). Don’t fight me on that. This brand is mostly in the North Bay, so it’s very exciting that you can get a taste of it (and parking) in the South-East Bay.

Now, let’s get to the main event: Donuts.

From what I can tell, a few are continuous mainstays. Vanilla bean glaze (which is awesome btw), double chocolate (on cake), and Maple bacon. The rest may switch out… I love them but I think they can/should change them up every once in awhile.

Could you imagine if they didn’t get a standard vanilla glazed donut well? They would be zero stars off the bat. Good news here, their sugar glaze has a mild taste of real vanilla bean. Just a hint, enough to make this better than your average sugar-glazed donut.

A star here is the Everything on It, which is basically like an Everything Bagel but it’s a yeast-donut filled with cream cheese. I have mixed feelings about savory donuts. Only a few pull it off (like District in NOLA and Las Vegas) well. But this is a great donut that tastes exactly like an Everything Bagel minus the dense bread of a bagel.

Everything.

PS. These donut photos are from my plates at home because of course I could not taste this many donuts in one setting without being at home.

You know how at Krispy Kreme, when you bite into the filled donuts you get that flavor like, “Yup, that’s whipped up shortening.” I’m not a big fan of most cakes mainly because of that taste. I don’t want to taste Crisco in my cake, in my donuts, in anything really. The filled donuts here don’t really taste like that, I don’t know why. This next one is the matcha donut, which tastes like they really put the straight-up industrial grade matcha powder into their filling. It’s not super rich or sweet, more mild flavors and mild sweetness.

sorry for finger.

Notice how these unique donut flavors from this new hipster donut shop aren’t completely buried with garbage. You can tell they are focused on flavor/taste here. Not piles of your favorite things.

Here’s the calamansi donut. That’s right, I said calamansi. It’s a unique citrus fruit we have in the Philippines. Much smaller than a lemon, & slightly sweeter with a little bit of tropical flavor. Not a lime and not Yuzu. If you love citrus, please try to get your hands on calamansi juice. Sun Tropics makes a juice. This donut tastes like the vanilla bean but with a slightly candy taste (sugary sweet) calamansi.

I’m going to share here that of the handful of times I’ve been here, they seem to run out mid-afternoon around the 2PM time frame. That being said, there’s A LOT of people behind the counter. They’re working, they’re making these very delicious donuts.

Oh, and they’re not cheap. Mediocre donuts covered in garbage at some other places typically range $3… so don’t get too freaked out. These are between $3.50 and $5.00 a piece. They’re not cheap. A dozen donuts is not cheap. Go here to treat yourself. Go and support a mom and pop when you need to get donuts for groups of people.

I know I’m sharing Asian/Pacific flavors here. Their maple bacon is really good. I can’t say any of these are not really, really good. That being said, behold this mango coconut donut! It neither tastes artificial or hyper tropical.

These are some of the best donuts I’ve had and I’m very, very happy they are within 5 minutes of driving from home. Definitely in top 5 of the Bay Area. I’ll share the others another time.

If you love donuts, save up and go visit Bun Appétit!

Telefèric Barcelona

Walnut Creek is a 1.5-2 hour drive from home. A bit too far to go often. We had no idea there was a bustling downtown area complete with a free trolley, a Uniqlo, and a Peleton!

We found Telefèric Barcelona on accident. Looking for Tapas in the Bay Area, it came up in Palo Alto which I found was not opened. What really caught my eye was that their other restaurant location was Barcelona, Spain.

Telefèric is located in the middle of the outdoor shopping district. Lots of parking was nearby in a huge structure, but right next to the red brick building is a metered parking lot. The building itself is tall but quaint and doesn’t have large signage. The door is against a wall of succulents/plants. On the bottom floor is a little shop and a pizza parlor. To get to the restaurant, head up the stairs or take the elevator to the second floor.

It' isn’t stuffy inside, there are banquettes, small tables for 4 and bistro tables lining the window. It wasn’t busy at 11AM PST. The hostess first seated our reservation at one of the bistro tables. Unfortunately, this seat had a view that was obscured by a large steel column. We asked to move to a normal seated table in the corner of the restaurant, giving us a better view of the street corner below. There’s a room offset from the corner that looked like it served a party. There is also an open-air rooftop terrace near the front. Tiny, suspended gondolas hang from a ceiling covered with (plastic) hanging plants. (Telefèric is a gondola). A sign out front said they sometimes have flamenco nights!

Our waiter was Spanish, and he talked us through their specialties and his favorites. A small cart was pushed around with 4-5 plates, Pintxos (think dim sum)! We followed our eyes and got the bacon-wrapped date on top of cucumber goat cheese, and a deconstructed caprese salad.

Pintxos > Amuse bouche > bites. These were $5 a plate.

Tapas: Salmon sashimi topped crab coquetas.

you would think that a tightly packed high-rimmed bowl like this would turn patatas bravas (french fries) soggy.. but these were really crispy and nicely presented (almost stacked neatly like bricks).

roasted brussel sprouts

white sangria

lobster paella

Paella is a must when we check out a Spanish restaurant. We opted for the Lobster because the likelihood of us coming out frequently is very low. The lobster on top was cooked perfectly. The rice in the paella came out slightly saucy/mushy which we both noticed, but set/firmed up after a few bites and was really good. It also had mussels, shrimp, octopus. Paella could be eaten by itself in one meal.

We ended the meal with Torrijas: Catalan French Toast. Our waiter said that they had run out of supply the night before but they opened up the next batch for us. This was what french toast dreams are made of. The outside was perfectly crispy fried and the inside was very soft and wet… not firm and dense like french toast. It had a little bit of infused orange and orange zest. It was a definite highlight.

This did not break the bank but was not cheap. It was worth the cost for real Catalan/Coastal/Spanish food. We’ll go again for a special occasion and when we’re willing to drive over… or wait for Palo Alto.

BONUS: Inklings Coffee and Tea

We stopped on the way for a pick-me-up in Pleasanton (near a Therapy store).

This cafe was beautiful! I love libraries and used to have my parents drop me off in the morning and I would spend the day there, and have them pick me up later. If only there were cafe’s at our suburban library. This is essentially a library/study/multipurpose room in a cafe.

bookshelves hold books you can take, there are little bins on lower shelves for kids, and you can even check out board games.
bonus: sitting blankets are laid out in a basket!