Portland Series: Tonalli's Doughnuts & Cream

This is the third and long-time-coming review in my Portland Food Series, and we again find ourselves in the Alberta Arts District. You will notice that quite a few of the reviews are in that area and in the respect of full disclosure, I stayed just a few blocks off of Alberta Street while I was in town.

Tonalli's Doughnuts & Cream is located on NE Alberta Street at NE 28th. We went there for a post-breakfast snack and I was truly blown away by the sheer number and types of doughnuts on display and for sale. Cake doughnuts, fluffy doughnuts, sprinkled, chocolate, coconut, iced, with filling, glazed. You name it, Tonalli's has it. Yeah, it's pretty bare bones inside and qualifies as a hole-in-the-wall, but those prove to me time and time again to often be the best places out there.

I got a Coconut doughnut, which was a cake doughnut with white icing and flaky, sweet coconut piled on top. I also got a coffee as well. Both were fresh and complimented each other well. Unlike with the coconut cupcakes at Cupcakes here in BC, I did not feel sick afterwards, but rather delighted. It didn't come to more than $4 and was fresher and tastier than your average Timmy Ho fare.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not dissing Timmy Ho joe and their double chocolate doughnuts. But, Tonalli's has a got a few important things on Timmy's: variety, quantity, freshness, and an actual neighbourhood feel (Tonalli's is not a chain).

If you want to compare Tonalli's to Voodoo, I don't think it's worth it because all they have in common is that they both sell doughnuts. Tonalli's does ice cream, cold drinks, coffee, espresso drinks, and the like, and has space to sit down. And while they may not have doughnuts with cereal on top or pieces of bacon, they do have a huge variety of your basics and your slightly fancy ones too.

If you're in the Alberta Arts District, you've got to stop by with a friend and be a cop for a day, coffee in one hand and doughnut in the other.