Our triumphant return, and donuts

We're back! Man, Jakarta is hot, especially after a month in the northeastern U.S. More on the trip later, but I'm too sleepy to post something new so here's a Junk Food that I started working on before we left.

With a donut craze in full swing, and outlets popping up all over (Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme, J.Co., ICrave), some places go to extremes to differentiate themselves. Hence, the smoked-beef-and-cheese donut.


I've been eyeing these for months at ICrave, but somehow the moment for a beef donut never seemed to come around. I finally tried one just before we took off on vacation.


The donut is only slightly sweet. The smoked beef (a popular sandwich meat) is barely noticeable. But the cheese is a problem. It's the plasticky kind that peels off in a sheet or, if you make the mistake of eating it, instantly cleaves to the roof of your mouth. What it does well is to glue the beef bits onto the donut, which I appreciate; you wouldn't want them ending up in your shoes, or on the floor of the glitzy shopping mall, where they would present a hazard to high-heeled ladies on their way to Gucci and Versace.

Basically, this is a big salty-sugary-fried blob. It wasn't terrible, but it's not something I'm in a hurry to eat again, now that I've finally dislodged the last bits of cheese from my hard palate.