Too many donuts to pick just one

I swear I wasn’t going to stop in. For years I’ve made fun of Tim Hortons because the first time I ever saw one of these Canadian fast food restaurants, I thought it was a burger joint and talked my friends into stopping. They razzed me good to find out it was a pastry and coffee shop — accused me of trying to hoodwink them into Dunkin’ Donuts’ sister company for lunch.

My notorious sweet tooth didn’t help my case one bit.

When driving from Calgary to Vancouver a few years later, my husband pointed out every Tim Horton’s we saw during those 10 hours in the car, which really lit my fuse.  “Do you want to eat at THAT Tim Hortons? Do you want to eat at THAT Tim Hortons? Do you want to eat at THAT Tim Hortons?” (and there were a lot of them) would make any sane wife consider murder.

Last week, I attended Cruise3sixty in Vancouver for my Cruise Line International Association accreditation courses and the Canada Place venue helpfully connected to a food court with lots of places to choose from, like McDonald’s, Subway, Grandma Lee’s, Taco Time, and places I’d never heard of before.

And, being Canada of course, they had a Tim Hortons that was always crowded.

I broke down on the second day. I ordered a honey yeast, a Dutchie and a Coke, which the gal bagged up for me, gave me the price and I got out ye olde credit card to pay. Yes, I know it’s a paltry sum for a credit card charge but 1) I didn’t have any cash on me, having left that back at the hotel, 2) I need receipts when I’m on a business trip in case of a tax audit and 3) buying it on credit means I don’t have to enter it as petty cash and pay back the household at the end of the month. In other words, I was being lazy.

National Donut Day treat

Now I knew better than to whip out my Discover card because there are retail places in the U.S. that doesn’t accept it, so I ran my VISA through the machine. Nothing happened. I swiped again. Nada. “We only accept Mastercard,” said the gal behind the counter. It just so happens I do have a Mastercard — back at the hotel, in the same wallet with my cash. Embarrassed, I had to hand back the donuts.

If there was ever an omen to avoid a restaurant, that was it. I’d just dodged a bullet, although I did slide the Mastercard into my business wallet “just in case.”

But on Day Three, I opened my browser on the laptop to discover  it was National Donut Day in the United States, and suddenly, I was homesick for Dunkin Donuts. The kind of homesickness that means everything you look at resembles a donut: cars rolling past on my walk to Canada Place are powered by big donuts. The dome on top of the Marriott hotel looked like a half donut. The chart in my educational session looked like … well, a pie but it’s the same shape as a donut.

By lunch, I was compelled to walk back into Tim Hortons and repeated my order with the Mastercard, and threw in a Long John this time just to be sure. It was delicious, with an undertone of honey in the icing, just below the sprinkles. The Dutchie was soft, with moist raisins and coated in a honey glaze. By the time I got to the yeast one, all that honey was making my teeth hurt. I was suddenly not looking at a Dunkin Donuts’ substitute, but a Krispy Kreme nightmare. If I took one more bite, I was going to be sick.

And yet, I took that bite. Then another, until I had those donut cravings completely squashed, probably never to return again. Until I return to Canada, that is, and see yet another Tim Horton’s.

Tim Hortons

200 Burrard St. Waterfront

Vancouver, British Columbia V6C3L6

(604) 692-0348

Photography: Tim Hortons, rfzappala @ Flickr