Donut Bar + Coffee = I’m OBSESSED. I was intrigued when I recently read about this specialty donut shop, which opened last summer, in an issue of Hour Detroit. Looking it up on Yelp, I saw reviews were mixed; some people were loving the donuts, and others said they were overhyped. So of course I had to go see for myself what these little fried dough nuggets were all about. The verdict? These are some damn good donuts!
OK, the tres leches one I got was PHENOMENAL. I’m more of a chocolate gal myself, so I probably wouldn’t have chosen that one if I hadn’t seen someone on Yelp raving about it. But I did not regret my choice; it was melt-in-your-mouth rich and creamy, exactly the way a tres leches donut should be. And the peanut-butter banana one! – I believe it was aptly called the Fat Elvis – that one was also amazing! It was stuffed with banana-flavored custard, slathered with peanut-butter frosting, and sprinkled with chopped nuts. Peanut butter is practically an addiction for me, so I was definitely digging that one. Even the more traditional donut I bought, the plain one with chocolate frosting and some little crispies on top, was quite good. So for me, Donut Bar + Coffee definitely lived up to the hype! I can’t speak to the coffee part of the deal, because I didn’t get one, but the donuts were glorious.
29039 Southfield Rd.
Southfield, MI 48076
I’m really not much of a Christmas/holiday season person compared to some people. You will NOT see me putting up my tree November 1, that sacrilege against fall, my favorite season! And I pretty much throw up a little in my mouth when I see holiday decorations and plastic pine trees for sale in department stores in mid-October. But there are some things I love about the holiday season – real Christmas trees, family time, thoughtful gifts, richly indulgent dinners – and holiday decorations in bars. I LOVE holiday decorations in bars. Random, I know. But it makes them so cozy and lovely! Often the dive-i-er the bar, the better – the dive-i-ness somehow ups the festive factor.
Chicken ‘n’ waffle! Poutine! Roasted root salad! The large and impressive menu of the recently opened Fork n’ Pint in Waterford boasts numerous rich-and-cozy comfort-food dishes. You need a hearty, substantial meal to go with all of those craft cocktails and beers you’ll be consuming in the confines of the cozy, cabin-esque establishment. (OK, I am sensing a theme with cozy for me here. I am in flannel pajamas and drinking tea with a candle warmly burning next to me in the dead of winter, so cozy is kind of my jam right now).
On December 10, I visited the tiny, cutesy-nostalgic Parks and Rec Diner in downtown Detroit, but I wasn’t there to scarf down some biscuits and gravy or some of its other scrumptious-sounding breakfast fare. I was there for a very special dinner – a pop-up dinner to benefit an awesome local farm, Melo Farms! It is a Yale-based pig farm run by a husband-and-wife team who raises a heirloom breed one hundred percent the humane way: truly free-range, organic, grass-fed, and treated with compassion. Melo Farms has been holding monthly pop-up dinners hosted by different chefs and at different venues in the Detroit area to help raise money for a new tractor. December’s dinner was crafted by the young and talented Chef Larissa Pope, who had us dining on five courses featuring various components of Melo Farms’ pork, including:
I fell in love with Republic the moment I walked into it. It was so classy and lovely and grand. And I was simply there to have a drink! If it weren’t for the fact that I was about to attend a very special pop-up dinner next-door at Parks and Rec (which I’ll write about in my next post), I surely would’ve stayed for dinner. The food menu looked quite intriguing (current offerings include handmade pierogies, braised beef shortrib, and a confit rabbit leg accompanied by “tomato water cous-cous, smoked yogurt, roasted yellow beets”), and I love its farm-to-table approach. Plus, I’ve heard amazing things about its cuisine. And the drink I had was delightful. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it, but it contained whiskey and was whimsically old-fashioned and was another component that made me feel grand. OK, perhaps the word “grand” subconsciously keeps coming to mind because Republic is located on Grand River Avenue and is located in the Grand Army of the Republic building, that massive, impressive, castle-y-looking behemoth of a building (complete with turrets!) that was recently restored after years of renovation work. Check out the before-and-after photos on 
I am not a hipster, and I am not someone who owns a record player, but I often fancy myself as the type of person who could someday be both of those things. I like many hipster-y things, and I love the idea of being a person who owns a record player. Records, for me, are whimsical relics of the past. They remind me of my childhood and my dad’s record player and his vast collection of albums with their often-puzzling covers (The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls always intrigued me) and the lovely little scratching noise the needle of the record player makes when it hits the vinyl. Except it was always so annoying to try to find the start of a particular song. I don’t miss that part. Or when a wonky record started to go all haywire and start skipping and going cray-cray. Anyway. I love hearing when successful hometown folks come back to support Detroit. So I was happy to hear that Jack White had opened a Third Man Records store in Midtown, right next to good ol’ JP (Jolly Pumpkin!). I’m not a Jack White aficionado, but he seems like a cool dude, and I admire his talent and his unremitting creativity, so I was eager to check the place out.
100 Places in the D 