Frost Doughnuts in Mill Creek

Going for Seconds blog, April 1st 2010. 

Donuts are one of the foods that reach down to the very core of my food-loving self. If I were to classify the foods that got me to this level of food geekdom it would be fried chicken, dim sum, ice cream, chicken adobo, and donuts. Perfectly healthy. Perfectly awesome. Growing up, all of these framed my love of food.

In the case of donuts, the local grocery store did the trick; grab a couple of maple bars, maybe a bismark and I’d be rolling. And if I could hit that maple bar in the microwave? Hell yes. But as I’ve developed my palate and started thinking about what I eat, the grocery store donuts don’t really cut it anymore. Odd, off flavors, inconsistent, super sweet. Locally there were some OK donuts; Top Pot is pretty good – but the Surly Gourmand isn’t a fan. He did turn me on to a place in New York called the Doughnut Plant. Which has some of the best donuts (heck, best eats) I’ve ever had. But since I don’t live on NY’s Lower East Side, I needed to shift my attention and cravings to local offerings. And I’m happy to say that I think I’ve found a donut place that I’m happy to indulge in on a regular basis. Frost Doughnuts, welcome to my food decision-making process.

I heard a fair bit about Frost before visiting. They were talked about on Twitter often and were recently a hit at the Seattle Food & Wine Experience. What I like about them is that they opened up in the North End, particularly Mill Creek. I have a soft spot for places that open up in Snohomish County; good for the area and good for me when I go back home. But I reserved my excitement for Frost. I knew that donuts could be great, most are good, many are awful. Where would Frost fit?

Well, when I finally visited, I really enjoyed their donuts. Jonathan Kauffman (formerly of the Seattle Weekly) wrote a great post about the Frost experience and what he had. I did love their cruller; that thing is like a delicate drop of fried heaven. And they have a lot of clever and creative flavors. For bacon lovers, they have a bacon maple bar. Sweet, savory, bacon-y, what you’d expect with a bacon donut. On their menu, they mention a bunch of their flavors that are unique. When I visited in March, they had a few flavors that were St. Patrick’s Day inspired. One thing to consider, these donuts aren’t cheap. It’s a premium product, so be prepared to shell out a couple of bucks for some of these donuts.

A few other things to know about Frost; they donate their end of night donuts to a local food bank. Very noble and I would like to see more restaurants/eateries do this. The place has a lot of polish to it, so you can see that they have grand goals with branding and merchandise. And be prepared for a lot of brown & pink when you step inside. And if you do make the trek to Mill Creek for Frost’s donuts, be sure to check out their Twitter for the latest.

Another thing for donut lovers to keep an eye on; the unbelievably talented Lara Ferroni is working on a donut book. And yes, it’s just as awesome as you’d think it’d be. And lastly, another link for people to go nuts over donuts. My friend Tracy Schneider went crazy with donut posts lately. If you want to learn about the fried deliciousness of donuts, check out her Choice Morsel blog.