Portland Donuts

by Nadia LeeApr 25, 2014

I want some donuts…
I know you’ll want these donuts!

Blue Star Donuts tl;dr

When traveling, one of the things you can count on us doing is getting up early to explore, take advantage of the weekend or two day time frame we usually have in that particular city and most of all, get in line early for popular spots to try it out, Portland was no exception to the rule.

When one generally asks about Portland donuts, most people talk about Voodoo Donuts. After hearing that it was similar to Psycho Donuts, a local donut joint in San Jose known more for their workers in nurses outfits than great donuts in my opinion, we decided to pass and go for a more local well known Portland donut shop called Blue Star. It also didn’t hurt that was much closer to our hotel!

Counters of Artisinal Blue Star Donuts

Portland’s Best Artisinal Donuts

We ended up getting to the donut store around 7:30am and it was already busy with a line of people waiting to place their donut order. The store itself is surrounded by glass windows that you can look in and also adding a lot of natural light to the store. It’s also an open kitchen concept so you can view all the workers inside making the donuts and seeing what may be coming out next.

Immediately after walking in, a hilarious social media board, immediately caught my eye. My personal favorite, G+ “a google employee who eats donuts”, so true!

Chalkboard Sign Explaining Social Media Formats by Blue Star

F8T Tip

Eat everything!

In terms of the donuts itself, we decided to get a whole assortment of flavors (I mean when else are we going to come back!) and give whatever screamed out our names a shot. Most of the donuts are around $2-$3 each, kinda pricey if you think about it since its just a donut but these ones were well worth the added cost.

One of my favorites was a custard filled donut that whose crust was brulee’d by hand with a torch and came with a little squeeze bottle of Cointreau. Apparently the proper way to eat this is to squeeze the Cointreau bottle once you’re ready to eat it and the liquor will slowly meld with the custard inside. Absolutely unique and delicious!

Creme Brulee Donut with a Shot of Cointreau at Portland's Blue Star

My second favorite donuts was the one filled with coconut custard. Blue Stars version was very much reminiscent of a malasada you can get in Hawaii.

In my opinion, which may be a shocker to some of you, this one was better than Leonard’s malasadas from Oahu and please believe, this is true. The coconut custard was so light and the donut skin was absolutely perfect. This is also a must!

Half Eaten Cream Filled Donut at Blue Star in Portland

Other donuts we ordered included: Maple bacon, blueberry bourbon basil, chocolate crunch, dulce de leche, apple cider fritter and more. All of them were great and so worth the wait! Just do it and get as many as you can!

This was by far the best place we ate in Portland.