I found myself in Paddington one day. It’s not a place I visit regularly. It’s not my sort of suburb – way to trendy for this guy. Mind you, I worked there for three years many moons ago. And it hasn’t changed all that much.
Paddington is very lopsided. Just about everything is on one side of Oxford Street. So my doughnut search plan was to start at one end and walk up, checking out what was available, then on the return journey, pick out the best.
I only found one. For all the cafes, bakeries and eateries in Paddo, one lousy doughnut. ‘Lousy’ referring to the quantity, not to the quality.
And it was a dine-in option, not a takeaway-eat-out-of-the-bag-on-the-run option.
Mickey’s Café is a ‘bar and diner’. It has plenty of seats. There are lots of things on the menu – typical things you get in a diner, like burgers, pizza and thickshakes. The staff are a bit hit and miss. One girl was friendly and smiled, the other wouldn’t crack a smile at a comedy festival.
Among the desserts on the menu is an item called ‘French Doughnuts’ – note the plural. It or they come with caramel fudge, strawberries and ice-cream. The only French Doughnut I’m aware of is a brioche, so I was interested to see what they’d serve up.
It took a while to come, so I was hoping it would be cooked fresh.
Sure enough, it came warm, and was beautifully presented.
The doughnuts are like the Greek Loukoumades I reviewed a while ago.
They are small blobs of pastry, deep fried and covered in cinnamon sugar. Very delicious. Mine were a little under-cooked. While the outer shell was crusty, inside they were just a slight step up from liquid. The oil they were cooked in was probably a bit too hot.
The accompanying bits and pieces were all good – thankfully, strawberries are excellent in Australia right now, so there was no disappointment there.
If you want a sit-down doughnut meal, try Mickey’s Café at Paddington.
DomNuts 