TooMuchGreen

After all my years of berating fast food chains (well, McDonalds, I have been known to slip in and odd Burger King ‘whopper’ here and there) it seems *they* have finally got me. *They* are Dunkin Donuts.

This summer in the USA I quickly became accustomed (or is that addicted?) to their cheap quick daily hit of carbs and caffeine, yes, shameful I know but until you’ve had a Boston Creme then don’t judge, plus I’m blessed with a crazy metabolism which doesn’t seem to mind what I eat anyway (bonus..!) so who cares, not me – ha ha. No, no matter what I eat in three hours I’m ready to roll again, and the scales don’t move – 68kg, it never varies, mind you when I say I can eat anything I do have a ’size’ threshold of course, I’ve never been a three or four plate guy in those ‘all you can eat’ places (although I’ve sat with people who have), regular exercise and sensible portions seem to keep me right.

Dunkin in Berlin really caught me by surprise, for one I never expected to find them here as with but one single DD in the UK only (somewhere in London – I’m already on a mission to find it) I thought they were an exception, i.e one American institution which hadn’t as yet infiltrated the rest of the worlds ‘fast’ food chain. DD are also different here, they have more choice of both Donuts and coffee, yes, I know, it makes no sense, you’d think it would be the other way round but not at all, alongside all the US favourites their range of donuts is at least a third more extensive, plus here I can get a sensible sized ‘XS’ coffee as oppose to the ‘regular’ US bucket which keeps your bladder busy for 5 hours.
Berliners have really taken to their donuts, there were none when we came in 2004 but now they’re literally all over the place, I checked the DD map (yes, a Donut map) and there’s 25+ around the city, that’s quite something and it really does feel like there’s one on every corner (not that I’m complaining), I particularly like the idea of the big one in Alexanderplatz with the ‘Donut lounge’ upstairs – lovely big sofas to recline on while you ride the sugar rush from a 6 donut party pack.
I’ve felt obliged to a daily visit of course and we’ve been highly amused, if not also quite amazed, at the amount of 12 donut take out boxes these lot get through, in some places it’s almost continual (while we’re sat watching with our shamefully inadequate single donut and small coffee), in three months in the US I never saw one get sold and it makes me wonder why they’re so mad for it here? Perhaps there’s still a backlash from the Eastern socialist days when even a banana was seen as the food of dreams? (People don’t realise just how restrictive it was during the time of the wall, it really was full on controlled socialism over there), or maybe they just like their donuts, I know I do and I’ve got no excuses, there wasn’t that much oppressive state communism in the North Yorkshire market town where I grew up.
The pitch for the donut fix is quite a clever one I think, unlike McDonalds they’re not trying to pass themselves off as ‘real food’ (which Maccy Ds will NEVER be), no, it’s just a Donut and a coffee, nothing else, it’s not super healthy but isn’t super bad for you either, although I suppose that depends in how many 12 packs you get through…!