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!
