Gourdough's Food Trailer
I’m not gonna lie, I was looking forward to the trip to Gourdough’s probably more than any other place we were planning on eating. In fact, Miguel and I spent roughly an hour during a Saints game a couple weeks ago perusing the website looking at all the pictures of Gourdogh’s menu. I highly recommend checking out their website, it’s well done and give you an accurate idea of what you’re in for.
The food truck/trailer scene in Austin is a truly unique culinary endeavor and Gourdough’s is one of the best ones out there in my opinion. Since we were a party of three (myself, Miguel and our gracious host Ashley), we decided to get four donuts to split. Word to the wise: these things are huge and are definitely dessert donuts, not breakfast. We didn’t eat every bite, but we wanted to sample as much as we possible. We decided to order the Mama’s Cake, Sara’s Joy, Funky Monkey and Miss Shortcake donuts.
Funky Monkey
I made the mistake of trying the Funky Monkey first. I say it was a mistake because it was so full of flavor, sweetness and goodness that I knew it would be hard for the other three to measure up. Funky Monkey is a donut topped with cream cheese icing, caramelized bananas and brown sugar. It was rich and decadent, but it exceeded my expectations somehow.
On a side note, I take issue with the name. This is definitely a Bananas Foster type donut. I was under the impression that Funky Monkey was banana and chocolate. Either way, I’m not complaining. They could call it dirt donut and I would still recommend it.
Sara's Joy
Next up, I sampled the Sara’s Joy donut. As insane as this may sound, this was the richest donut of the night. The chocolate and coconut mixed perfectly, but I think the amount of fudge and coconut topping exponentially increased the richness. That said, it was still an amazing donut. I think it would benefit from some almonds to give it a little more crunch.
Miss Shortcake
Following Sara’s Joy, I tried Miss Shortcake, the donut with cream cheese icing and fresh strawberries. By this point, I realized Gourdough’s is just as focused on the quality of the donuts as they are with the quality of the toppings. The cream cheese icing is top notch and better than some of the icings I’ve had on cupcakes and other desserts. The strawberries were very fresh and had the perfect sweet to sour ratio. It was a nice acidity balance to the sweetness of the icing and donut.
Last up was Mama’s Cake, a yellow cake batter filled donut with fudge icing and cake batter topping. This is life in the South in a donut. It was definitely reminiscent of growing up on yellow cake.
Side story, as a kid, I once pigged out on yellow cake so badly that I made myself sick. Thankfully, that didn’t happen on my visit to Gourdough’s.
Mama's Cake
All in all, the trip to Gourdough’s was no letdown, in fact, it exceeded my wildest dreams. Having such a high-quality website for a food products usually means the bar is pretty high. But Gourdough’s definitely has the ability to meet and zoom past that bar.
The donuts are definitely big and fat, but more importantly, the donuts are cooked to order, delicious and crispy. You may experience a little bit of a wait while waiting for your donut(s), but I can assure you it’s worth the wait (and weight for that matter).
Gourdough’s is located at 1219 S. Lamar Blvd. and is open daily. Hours vary (including late night) so visit the website for details.
Po' Boy Livin' Rich 