Summer Fridays: The Doughnut Plant and The Meatball Shop

Most people in New York working in the fashion, publishing or other “fun” industries get “summer Fridays” where they get to either work from home, not work at all or get off work early.

I do not get any of those perks.

So, to make ourselves feel better, my co-workers and I make extremely “aggressive” Friday food choices. Today, I would like to showcase two of our latest food adventures (in the office): The Doughtnut Plant and The Meatball Shop.


---

Doughnut Plant is a bakery in the Lower East Side that makes very unique and creative variations of the classic donut, or ahem, doughnut. The owner, (Mark Israel), started out in a LES basement, making donuts based on his grandparents’ recipes and delivered them on his bicycle to Dean & Deluca, Balducci’s and other NYC coffee shops. He finally opened a storefront in 1999 and it’s been crazy popular since then! He even has 9 donut shops in Japan that he opened with a Japanese partner.

What makes his donuts special is his original donut making techniques, using fresh fruit and nuts in glazes and even making the jelly for his jelly-filled donuts.

Here are the goods that Gregor picked out for us this morning. My favorites are the Crème Brulee doughnut (voted by Maxim Magazine as one of 10 best donuts in America) and the Tres Leche doughnut.

Many also like the Jelly-filled Square Doughnut (Mark invented this and it’s trademarked!)

This crazy Dr. Seuss looking donut is a fresh blueberry donut.

Visit for yourself!

The Doughnut Plant

379 Grand St

(between Essex St & Norfolk St)

Hours: Tue-Sun 6:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Before 7:30am on a weekday, barely any line, but be prepared to wait ~30+ minutes on weekend mornings!

Website 

Yelp Reviews (605 reviews @ 4.5 stars)

Subway:

Delancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)

Grand St (B, D)

Nearby Kossar’s Bialys also has great bialys and bagels!

---

The next favorite is also in the Lower East Side and it is The Meatball Shop. 


Opened by two guys with crazy impressive resumes, the meatballs here are definitely gourmet and delicious!

An order of meatballs come in a set of 4 in classic beef, spicy pork, chicken, vegetable or a weekly special with 4 types of sauces including classic tomato, mushroom gravy, spicy meat sauce and parmesan cheese.

You can also get the meatballs in a sandwich ("hero"), which comes with a delicious arugula salad. The sliders on their website look delicious as well, although they are not available to go (boo!).

For a late night snack, the store is also open until 4am on Thursday - Saturday! I guess this may come to rival the famous Chicken and Rice cart for those who live downtown =P

The Meatball Shop
84 Stanton St
(between Allen St & Orchard St)

Hours:
Mon-Wed, Sun 12 pm - 2 am
Thu-Sat 12 pm - 4 am

Website
Yelp Reviews (185 reviews @ 4 stars)

Subway:
2nd Ave-Houston St (F, V)
Delancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)
Grand St (B, D)