00:02 John Daub: Hey everybody, welcome to Omotesando. This is Cat Street that leads from Shibuya Station to Omotesando. There's a bunch of donut shops in this area and it is a sweltering hot day. I'm sweating. In the streets of Harajuku, I noticed that there's not really good signal for doing a live stream, so I thought I would start right here because there's a signal. This area is really famous for having donut shops. If you go into Google Maps and search donuts, you come up with all of these places. Some might be just a convenience store, but I'd say maybe 12 different donut shops that are starting to gain some traction just selling donuts. Some of them on the streets, you can see them boiling in the oil. We're going to take a look at some of them. I had to take the pictures in advance walking around this area.

01:00 John Daub: Joining us in the background are our friends from Harajuku, Austin and Cheryl from Hawaii, Photo Look Hawaii. There's Austin and Cheryl joining us. Maybe they can eat some of these donuts. Any of the leftovers is up for grabs and Kanae, of course, can possibly munch on them as well. But I've gone to the shops and bought some of them. So the first place that I wanted to go to eat, but I couldn't just check out this line here. What do you guys think this is here? This line was so far out the door for a donut. I couldn't believe it. This donut shop is called I'm Donut. I don't know how good it is because I couldn't get to the front of the line to eat one. I'm not going to stand in line for 30 minutes for something that's going to put me in the hospital eventually, and I had to pay for the privilege. It's kind of expensive. So they must be really good or something. There were just three offerings: the normal, the pistachio and like egg. They seem to make them right there in the shop. They move as fast as they possibly can, but they have a line. Apparently, they're so good that people wait up to an hour for them. But today is Saturday, that's probably the worst it's going to get because there's actually another I'm Donut shop just in Shibuya that was on that map.

02:38 John Daub: So the next place that I went to and the first donut that I actually picked up here on the ground. I'm going to show you. This is a cool one. This is called TCB Donuts. They were frying them right there on the street almost. You could see them at work, which is kind of cool. They're taking the paper off the bottom of it. All of them are more like that cream donut, the filling kind where they just have the different tastes that are in the cream. So if you just get the cream donut, you can kind of figure out what it tastes like by using your imagination. But I think for this one, we're going to try first. It looks good, right? This is on the other side of Omotesando, not too far away from Omotesando Hills main entrance, about five minutes from there between there and the intersection with the Tokyo building with the mirror. You can see there was kind of a line there.

03:48 John Daub: So here are the donuts right here. Let's take it out. I'm going to do it in the shade because it's really hot today. This is the one here, this is the glazed donut. Check it out. It's really puffy and it's soft and it doesn't look like it has a ton of glazed sugar on there. So it looks like it's okay. So we're going to try this one first. Just a bite because you can see how much it whales and how doughy and springy it is. We're testing for springiness, sweetness, oiliness. So not too oily. It's very bready, doughy. It's heavy. It's lightly sweet, not overly sweet. So that's kind of a good thing. You could probably eat three or four of them.

05:17 John Daub: This next one probably has seen better days. This one's been in my bag for about 10, 15 minutes. It's the normal cream donut, this is the most popular one. The funny thing was that she didn't really put it in a bag or a box or anything. She just handed it to me on the street like this, and I brought my own bag. I guess that saves some money there. Good for the environment, but not great for a video stream because it doesn't look so attractive. But if I take it out, you can see it really is glistening, all the sugar in there looks like diamonds. Even though the sun's kind of getting behind the cloud here, it does look really good. You can tear off it there, you go right inside there. The cream looks good, like the vanilla beans in there. Now that's really good. The vanilla beans and the cream fresh still chilled. They make the donuts hot and then they put a chilled cream in there. It's not a heavy cream. It's like a raw cream, whipped to whipped cream, but there's not a lot of sugar in there. The sugar is on the outside of the donut. So the cream retains the cream taste without the sugar in the cream. There's some vanilla beans in there, but the sugar around the donut is what gives it the sweetness, not the cream. That's a good lesson for those at Dunkin' Donuts.

07:11 John Daub: Perhaps the next and final place that I wanted to show you on this somewhat ridiculous donut tour is this place. Now, this one I've been wanting to go to for a very long time. It's called The Little Bakery in Omotesando. It's about five minute walk from here. Lots of people in there, but not nearly as crowded as the I'm Donut spot, which just sells donuts. This place has sandwiches and coffee and stuff, and the donut prices are reasonable. They're under 500 yen, which I thought was impressive. Here's a look at the menu. They had ice cream, which looked awesome. This is more of a cafe place and actually I was vibing with it. I felt really cool. If you look inside, they have those cinnamon rolls. I'm gonna have to pick one up for Kanae, but it was the donuts in the back there. They looked so good. Those are what I'm talking about when we're thinking about gourmet donuts and the prices again, pretty reasonable. There's the Nutella one, the maple bacon one. OK, I guess it's a maple bacon seems to be like the one that's going to win out here. But I picked up two and I want to try this. I'm going to try the two donuts from there and we're going to compare them.

08:23 John Daub: This one is the first one from The Little Bakery and you know what? Of course, I picked up that maple donut one. You can see the bacon glistening in the sunshine, not from gold, but from maybe bacon oil or fat. And that's a pretty good thing. Maybe that's the first one we're going to try here because it's got some bacon in there. And the next one, just because of the color, I love that. This is impressive. When I open up the package, you're going to see it even more. It's got like this green minty color to it and I thought that the mint might cool me down in the summer heat. This one again, all these are under 500 yen, which is crazy. This has cookies and chocolate. I don't know how they hit this price point, but it's cheaper than the other places and it looks way better. So I'm not sure what the people are lining up for. Why are they lining up when there's a better donut shop stuck in the middle of Omotesando? There was like virtually only two people ahead of me. I can wait. Luke and I were talking about this. If there's a line, we kind of just pass it up. But if there's like two deep, maybe it's worth waiting for.

09:56 John Daub: Little bitterness here. And of course, we're going to go in right in for this maple bacon. I'm going to open this up with you guys here. Omotesando, no place to sit because there's no signal around the restaurant. Here we go. Whoa, that just flipped right open. Look at those pieces of bacon. That's what you guys think. That is hardcore. Check it out here. All right, let's open up the other one here. We can do them both. Pure bacon. All right, this is the mint one. Honestly expected more fat. You can see it, it looks pretty good. If I put them side to side, which one do you think is going to be the more delicious one here? You guys vote in the comments below. This is a live stream, so we can see what everyone is saying. Most of them are going, the mint looks good. Maple bacon, how could you beat bacon?

11:56 John Daub: So the face off is between this one bakery now. Listen, we're just going to have to go in for it. I'm going to pick them up. Holy smokes, it is soft. Oh, my gosh. These are beautiful donuts, but they're really messy. This is the battle between the maple bacon and the Reese's chocolate there. That's a chunk of chocolate, it landed in the tray. That's really good chocolate. Mint chocolate, it looks like there's some raspberry on there. That's good. I think it's more baked, so it seems like it's going to be healthier. You can see inside the yeast did its job. It's fluffier, but it's a heavy donut. But you can see the air pockets in there, which is great. It gives it some springiness to it. I'm just saying this is a better donut. It's not oily. You can definitely get the chocolate taste in there, but it's not overly chocolatey unless you get a chunk of chocolate.

13:54 John Daub: Here we go, bacon maple. Clean the palette. It's got to be done. American breakfast. It tastes like pancakes and bacon. Mmm, looks good. It doesn't feel so good in my belly, though. The sun's pounding down on me, and I have a bucket full of oil. These are certainly oilier, I would say, than the other one, but I like this little bakery. That wins for me. I'm going to get some cinnamon rolls from there, take for Kanae, because I think she's going to appreciate that more than the donuts. But that, my friends, that's how you eat donuts on the street. Did you see all the people watching me? The Japanese are like, whoa, what's he doing here eating on the street? And then all the other people are like, that looks good, where did you get that? You can tell with their eyes. But there you go.

15:19 John Daub: I mean, I think if you're in Japan, these are more for tourists than they are for local residents. I'm not going to travel that far for donuts. But if you're coming halfway around the world, I think you should go get some sushi and maybe eat some okonomiyaki or some takoyaki or maybe go into a nice Wagyu steakhouse or something. I'm not sure if donuts are the thing. But if you're living out in the countryside in the US, they don't have stuff like this. There's so many donut shops. And if you like donuts back home, why not maybe come out and try it? It's kind of fun to try it. It's just not fun to wait in line like here at the I'm Donut. That's a little bit much. I really appreciated stuff like this. They were actually cooking it right in front of you. You could see the freshness of it. And you know, like it's not soaked in oil that's been sitting for a few hours. It's soaked in oil that's been sitting for five minutes. Maybe it's a little bit better. But, you know, it's in Japan. You're going to eat. Somebody said you could take 30,000 steps a day in Tokyo, but you're going to need to walk about 100,000 to work off all the food that you ate here. And they're not wrong. There's a lot of food around this area. And I've noticed just in the last two or three years in the Omotesando Shibuya area, the amount of stand foods where they just open up the front and you can take it away and eat somewhere else has really exploded. But this has also led to some issues like where's the trash can? That's why I always travel with plastic bags to throw it away.

17:00 John Daub: Jack in the Donuts is one of the funniest names I've seen in Okinawa. They have Jack in the Donuts at Akihabara. That's where Peter von Gomm and I like to go to get the donuts. They're okay. That creme brulee donut, I think, is pretty good. But the rest of the stuff, I think, is not worth paying for too much. I think it's just more of a gimmick. But that little bakery, though, I'm going to go back in there and get some more for Leo and Kanae.

17:26 John Daub: Hey, all right, we're finished. What do you guys have to say? Photo Look Hawaii, how's it going, you guys? Good to see you guys. We're just bugging John. Yeah, it's Austin and Cheryl. Austin, look how big he is. You guys could see on the live stream like five years ago, Austin was a third of the size. He was like way down here, like Leo size. And something happened. Bigger than dad now. How long are you here for? We're here until the 30th. So we got a good amount of time. And we're just going to hang out and enjoy Tokyo. Now, we were in Hokkaido earlier in Sapporo. And we're just going to try to enjoy, do all the things that we love. We always love Tokyo.

18:11 John Daub: Yeah. I like when you guys come here and visit. And that's not a boom mic. That's a 360 camera. Yeah, it's a 360. So what's the weather like in Hawaii? I guess it's different. It's hot. There's power outages in Chinatown right now. So it's not good. We're missing a lot of bad things. Here you just got the rainy season. It's not too bad right now. Sun is out. Yesterday was raining all day, as you guys saw. And today is sunny all day, which is kind of crazy. But yeah, what are you going to eat for dinner? Donuts? We don't know. I know what you can eat for breakfast. We're going to check some of those donuts now. I'm going back to that little donut.

18:55 John Daub: Well, thanks, guys. It was great to see you guys and all of you watching. I'll be back tomorrow with another live stream. Sorry that we started a little late. The signal in there is non-existent. It was hard to find that. And also the lines, I did not expect people waiting in line for something that's going to put you in the hospital one day. I might get that cinnamon roll instead of a donut, but they're pretty darn good. I get it. If you're going to try it once in your life, I would try that little donuts. But maybe that I'm Donuts, someone's got to go there and give it a little spin. That egg donut seems to be pretty popular. The pistachio as well. All right, everybody. See you again. Bye bye.