Big Apple Donuts in City Mall is Kota Kinabalu’s (KK) first dedicated donut shop, and beyond the initial teething problems, it’s proving quite popular. Called Big Apple Donuts & Coffee, Big Apple Donuts do more donuts than it does coffee, which isn’t surprising, as it’s wedged in between Starbucks Coffee and Old Town White Coffee on the mall-front of City Mall in Kota Kinabalu. Big Apple Donuts started operations in KK late in 2007 to seemingly little fanfare, however, it proved popular virtually from the day it opened.
Its success bamboozled itself initially, as queues quickly developed with which it was unable to cope, often leaving too long lines and too few donuts. Today, a month or two later, the queues seem to have quieten down. Whether this is due to better management, or whether already its popularity has waned, is difficult to tell. What remains certain is that Big Apple Donuts at City Mall KK is doing brisk business and the punters love it.
The official website of Big Apple Donuts is very well hidden, or it doesn’t exist, which makes it more difficult to tell where Big Apple Donuts are from, or any Big Apple Donut history for that matter. Unlike J. Co Donuts, the more prominent and better marketed cousin, albeit only because they have a website, Big Apple Donuts are shrouded in a veil of mystery. Nevertheless, Big Apple Donuts offers a simple menu of 24 different kinds of donuts, making it likely that at least one will suit every taste.
Ranging from the vanilla of donuts, Glacier, which is just a plain glazed donut, to the more exotic Say Cheese and Spicy Flossy donuts, which feature cheese and flossed chicken respectively, Big Apple Donuts has a few offering worth exploring. The dough is of the light and fluffy variety, which means, to me at least, that you can gorge on more donuts compared to their competitors in KL, J. Co, makers of a solid, heavy based donut. The fillings are sweet and for the most part quite delicious, although I did choke somewhat on Spicy Flossy.
In my opinion, chicken floss should be kept well away from donuts. Although I didn’t try Say Cheese, and I’m first to admit I love chocolate-chip-cookies-and-cheese, but alas, I also feel cheese and donuts might be a bit much. Donuts prices are reasonable, although predictably more expensive then their KL counterparts. A single donut will set you back RM2. 30, whilst a half-dozen box will cost RM12 and a dozen, as is standard in the industry, is most economical at RM22 per box (or a R5. 60 saving compared to buying 12 single donuts).
For those who actually care about Big Apple Donuts’ beverage selection, and I doubt many do, the cheapest beverage on the list is RM2. 50 for Skye Juice (mineral variety), RM4. 50 for a variety of teas, RM5 for an Americano coffee, and at the top end, Latte’s and Flavoured Latte’s at RM7 and RM7. 50 respectively. Their beverage selection has so far gone untried by this blog. To the question of background and history on this fine donut company, I guess we’ll have to approach the source for the answer: Big Apple Donuts & Coffee, City Mall, KK.
Big Apple Donuts opens in Warisan Square, Kota Kinabalu Posted on February 26, 2008 by 1Earth Going from strength to strength Big Apple Donuts opened their second branch of donut decadence in Kota Kinabalu’s Warisan Square. But what’s up the official website of Big Apple Donuts? Rumour has it (and it is a rumour), that they were in such a hurry to copy J. Co Donuts that they clean forgot about setting up a website. I visited the domain name some time ago (when I realised it existed), but it had a ‘Under Construction’ thingum running – now I can’t even access it.
Anyway, the good news about Big Apple Donuts in Warisan Square is that it might has well be an entirely different business, judging by the service that is. When Julia and I stumbled into the queue, the line was snaking right around the little kiosk, from the pay point right back to the kitchen on the other side. Short, slow-moving queues from Big Apple Donuts in City Mall flashed through our minds and we cringed at the prospect of having to wait so long to try the 6 donuts left on the menu, which we had yet to taste.
But we nearly choked on our donut-flavour-enduced drool when whilst pondering the worth of waiting in the queue, one of the service staff came over to our far flung corner and took our order. Gob smacked, we pointed out the ones we needed, was handed a box with them in, and we effortless flowed with the queue, which we now noticed was actually quite fast moving. At the till itself the process was quick and efficient and in no-time we were done. I was so inspired by this redeeming standard of service that I had to order a latte.
Previously I haven’t given much respect to the Coffee part of Big Apple Donuts & Coffee, but because of the excellent service I thought I would try it. This is where things hit a snag. Clearly they don’t make much coffee, although when I asked the girl at the cash register, she said they do – I’m not convinced she understood what I asked her. Her colleague first had to be reminded how to make the latte, then asked in which cup to put the latte, before eventually she gave me what looked like a Cappuccino in a very small cup. I cringed; RM7 for a sip of coffee.
However, if I was stunned by the efficiency of the Warisan Square branch of Big Apple Donuts, I was complete bowled over by the quality of the latte. I wasn’t expecting much, to be fair, but on my latte scale where zero on the lowest end is represented by a Nescafe tube of 3-in-1 (the most horrendous coffee imitation ever to hit the market) and five on the high end is a Starbucks, no-frills latte – and a 3 is a cafe latte at The Pacific Sutera’s Cafe Boleh – the Big Apple Donuts latte scored a 4. It was in fact a very satisfying latte.
And because the latte was riding shotgun with our donut tasting, I didn’t even notice, or mind that much, the tiny size of the cup. So, you’ve read much about Big Apple Donuts and you know there are 22 donuts on their menu board, and you also probably know that every now and again you find a donut which is not on the menu board, but do you know what you want before you go there? A major factor in slow moving queues, especially at the Big Apple Donuts in City Mall, is the fact that people can’t make up their minds about what they want to choose.
And it’s not like Big Apple Donuts make it any easier to decide before you go there, because only God knows what’s up with Big Apple Donuts’ official website (a hint: it’s not working). But donut salvation is at hand, because Sabahbah. com came up with The Ultimate Guide to Big Apple Donuts’ donuts. So if you’d like to know what’s actually included in their line-up (difficult to tell, especially at City Mall, when their trays are always empty), just refer to The Ultimate Guide to Big Apple Donuts’ donuts.
