FAT C I T Y
OFFICE SNACKS
This week:
BY
doughnuts and beer
S C O T T W IL S ON
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FAT CITY ONL
INE
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M PITCH.CO
HANA’S DOUGHNUTS
Ring. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. “Hana’s Donuts. Best doughnuts in the city.” Beep. So it goes when you dial 913-362-0244 late in the afternoon to ask what tomorrow’s hours are. You need to know how early a sour-cream old-fashioned can be had. The voice on what sounds like the city’s last analog answering machine is a man’s, low and comically flat but unironic about the declaration. (A couple of days later, the greeting has been changed to a fast sentence in Spanish.) At 10:30 the next morning, there are still several plain and chocolate-covered old-fashioneds at Hana’s (2131 South 34th Street, Kansas City, Kansas). The thumbnail-sized bakery took over its prime spot — next to a police station — last year from 22
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previous doughnut purveyor Poston but hasn’t yet changed the sign outside. Inside, there’s just enough room up front for a couple of diners to sit and talk as they finish their food. The woman working the counter loads up a box and helpfully points out that the dozen doesn’t yet include any glazed. Well, then, 13 doughnuts it is. At about $12, the box buys a fair amount of office satisfaction. A couple of people note that the chocolate atop some of the doughnuts tastes, as Zagat might put it, “real.” The word moist comes up a few times, always in its positive sense. The glazed earns less favor than the various cake varieties, with highest enthusiasm expressed for the hotter sectors of the doughnut color wheel: red velvet, cherry-frosted, rainbow-sprinkled.
GRADE: HIRED!
BOULEVARD REVERB
“Tastes like good yard beer,” says the first drinker after opening a bottle of Reverb, Boulevard’s rebooted summer Smokestack Pilsner. “It’s better than that,” the second drinker says. “Sweet, with a creamy smoothness. Honeylike.” Third drinker: “I’d buy a six-pack if it were less than $9.” None is left for the fourth drinker, who is late. There’s still a doughnut, but the doughnut would be better with beer. There’s some agreement about picking up another bottle of Reverb soon.
GRADE: TEMP E-mail feedback@pitch.com