Tim Hortons City Hall (Seoul, SOUTH KOREA) ★★★☆☆

My getaway to Seoul has gotten off to a fast start. Soon after arriving at Seoul Station on the Airport Railroad Express, I transited onto a subway train to City Hall. It didn't take long for me to find my hotel next to Seoul Plaza. After breezing through a warm and efficient check-in, I stormed out heading straight towards Anguk (安國). Everything was working according to my original plan.

On the way to the metro, I spotted the President Hotel across from City Hall, just a few steps from my hotel. And there it was — a Tim Hortons, the legendary Canadian coffee-and-doughnut shop!

I decided to pop in for a quick look. Apart from the usual suspects, there was a limited-time-only chestnut cream doughnut. Could I squeeze in a quick bite before getting back to my busy day?

Chestnut cream donut (4,700 won) — I thought the dough was a bit of a disaster. 

But the chestnut cream wasn’t too sweet. That was the one redeeming quality.

At least I got my first bite of the trip out of the way. Here’s hoping the treats that follow are a lot more enjoyable.

Food Rating: 4.8/10

Price: ₩₩

Address: 188-3 Euljiro 1(il)-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Closest Metro Station: City Hall / Euljiro 1(il)-ga

Tel: +82 070-7450-1017

Opening Hours: 7:00am - 9:00pm (Mon - Fri), 8:00am - 9:00pm (Sat - Sun)

Abebe Bakery Seoul (Hong Kong, CHINA) ★★★☆☆

Abebe Bakery Seoul is one of the city’s most viral dessert sensations in recent memory, famous for its decadent, Jeju Island-inspired cream-filled donuts and artisanal buns. Originally from Jeju Island, the bakery has built a loyal following with its soft, chewy breads filled with rich, inventive pastry creams.

I first came across the bakery while researching for my upcoming trip to Seoul. What I didn’t realize was that it had recently arrived in Hong Kong, soft-opening its first shop near K11 Art Mall in Tsim Sha Tsui.

The shop offers a colorful selection of cream donuts and cream buns, showcasing ingredients from Jeju Island. Favorites include Jeju matcha and Wimi Hallabong, a vibrant local citrus fruit. Other signature flavors include Dirty Chocolate and Pistachio.

The main difference between the cream donuts and cream buns is their texture and preparation. The donuts are lightly fried and coated in sugar, crumbs, or cocoa powder while the buns are baked, dusted with Castella cake crumbs, and almost always have a thick, ultra-chewy layer of traditional Korean rice cake (mochi) at the bottom.

Black sesame cream donut ($38) — I’m a sucker for anything with black sesame ganache, so this was a no-brainer.

The black sesame crumb coating and rich black sesame pastry cream made this a dream treat for any black sesame lover. The only slight drawback was that the donut seemed to be lightly fried only on the outside, so it tasted more like a bun than a classic donut.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Shop W, G/F, Ocean View Court, 31-43 Mody Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong

Closest Metro Station: Tsim Sha Tsui

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 9:30pm daily 

P.G.donut LUCUA 1100 ルクアイーレ店 (Osaka, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

Having visiting six doughnut shops on this trip already, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to add a seventh to the grand total. And this is one of my favorite doughnut shops in Osaka, just around the corner from where we had lunch at Grand Green Osaka.

Located inside LUCUA 1100, PG Donuts is a popular artisanal bakery chain best known for their incredibly light and fluffy nama-cream filled donuts.

While their pistachio donut stole my heart a couple of years ago, I decided to go with their Earl Grey donut this afternoon.

Earl Grey donut (475 yen) — This features an exceptionally soft dough with a rich, melting custard-cream blend.

What sets PG Donuts apart from other competitors is the light and airy custard cream — it feels more like whipped cream than a thick, dense custard. The Earl Grey flavor was also gentler and lighter, closer to a royal milk tea than a bold, intense Earl Grey.

It was sweeter than I remembered, but the crust still remained one of the thinnest in the business.

Food Rating: 6.8/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 2/F LUCUA 1100, 3-1-3 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0001, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Umeda 

Tel: +81 (0)6 6151-1547

Website: https://pgdonut.jp/

Opening Hours: 10:30am - 8:30pm daily

We❤️Donut × Takagi Coffee Umeda Station (Osaka, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

We were circling around Umeda Station (梅田車站) pondering about our next move when I suddenly spotted We❤️Donut (WeLoveDonut) x Takagi Coffee. While I initially just wanted to take a few photos of their nama donut tower, a few of us decided to sit down to rest our feet.

Conveniently located underground just three minutes from the gate of Umeda station, WeLoveDonut is a nama donut specialty shop that doubles as a coffee shop, but make no mistake about it, their soft, airy nama donuts are the real star.

Little nugget wasted no time grabbing an Oreo chocolate donut.

They have all kinds of flavors here and they kept replenishing the trays. I wish they had a branch in Hong Kong. 

While most of the group went with a sweet donut as an afternoon tea snack, I decided to go a different route. In fact, they offer quite a few savory options including ham and potato salad, egg salad, salmon and broccoli, bacon and Camembert, and spicy curry.

Homemade egg salad donut (350 yen) — The dough was a little thicker than normal, presumably to help hold the egg salad together.

I have to admit, this tasted a little weird with the slightly sweet dough on the outside and savory egg salad inside. 

Salmon and broccoli (520 yen) — If I was not having the egg salad donut, this was the one that I would be getting.

Creme brulee (380 yen) — This was looking good too.

Maybe I’m just a guy with an old man’s palate, but to me, doughnuts are supposed to be sweet.

Food Rating: 6.2/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: Whity Umeda Underground Shopping Mall, 8-5-6 Kakudacho, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0017, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Umeda 

Tel: +81 (0)6 4792-7198

Website: https://welovedonut.com/

Opening Hours: 8:00am - 10:00pm daily

Krispy Kreme North Shinsaibashi (Osaka, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

I’m pretty excited to finally stay at a different hotel than Hotel Leben in Osaka this time around. The Gate Hotel Osaka by Hulic has just recently opened in the heart of Shinsaibashi, and I’m curious what it has in store for us during our stay.

One thing I can say right off the bat is that the hotel is in a great location. It's just a short walk from Shinsaibashi’s shopping streets and our favorite Krispy Kreme location is probably less than a minute away.

While little nugget was off with his grandparents for his late lunch, I decided to check out the new creations Krispy Kreme has prepared for the summer, including this Penguin doughnut. 🐧🐧

I ended up getting one doughnut for each team members.

For myself, I got this melon-flavored doughnut. I don't think anyone would mistake it for anything other than a cantaloupe.

Inside, there was this fruity melon cream. It was front and center. So good!

Food Rating: 5.6/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: 3-11-8 Minamisenba, Chuo-ku, Osaka, 542-0081 Japan

Closest Metro Station: Shinsaibashi 

Tel: +81 (0)6 6484-6936

Website: www.krispykreme.jp

Opening Hours: 8:00am - 9:00pm daily

.donut Sannomiya Main Store (Kobe, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

It’s my third trip to Kobe (神戶), but only the first time staying near Sannomiya Station (三宮駅), so I was pretty hyped for it. In the end, this area turned out to be one of the buzziest neighborhoods in Kobe making our 16 hours in the city especially memorable.

I managed to sneak out for a short while while everyone was enjoying their delicious skewers. My destination? Another doughnut shop just outside Sannomiya Station.

.donut is an incredibly popular fresh nama doughnut specialty brand based in Kobe, Japan. They’re especially known for their signature “Kobe dot donut”, which features a fluffy, soft, and slightly chewy texture. The brand focuses heavily on local ingredients sourced from Hyogo Prefecture, and it often rolls out seasonal flavors made with fresh produce.

While the brand currently operates four outlets across Kobe, its main shop located right outside the west exit of Hankyu Kobe-Sannomiya Station (hidden inside Kobe New World) remains arguably the busiest. The best part? It’s just a stone’s throw from our dinner venue.

After forcing my way into the end of the lineup, I waited patiently to be served and it was finally my turn. As it turned out, it wasn’t going to be a tough decision. There were only two flavors left: chocolate and cherry 🍒.

Chocolate donut (390 yen) — The brioche-like dough was flavored with chocolate, which matched the chocolate custard filling perfectly.

Needless to say, chocolate flavors were front and center. Just look at the amount of rich chocolate custard in the filling!

While .donut prides itself on being a nama donut specialist, I thought the texture of its dot donut sits somewhere between a traditional yeast donut and a nama donut. It’s definitely bouncier, and the “structural airiness” feels a little different from that of I’m Donut?.

Food Rating: 6.5/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: Kobe New World (Outside West Exit of station), 1-1-1 Nagasadori, Chuo-ku, Kobe, Hyogo 650-0012, Japan

Closest Metro Station: Sannomiya

Tel: +81 (0)78-325-5524

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 9:00pm daily

Piece of Bake Mitsui Outlet Park Marine Pia (Kobe, JAPAN) ★★★☆☆

The Shikoku part of our trip is officially over now that we’ve crossed the bridge into Kobe. Next up, we’ll spend some time at Mitsui Outlet Park Marine Pia before heading into the city for dinner later.

Mitsui Outlet Park Marine Pia reopened in November 2024 after a massive two-year reconstruction. It’s not the biggest outlet mall — about 150 shops — but there should be more than enough to keep casual shoppers like us happy.

I wasn’t planning on a full-blown lunch after sharing a burger with little nugget earlier in the morning. Maybe I’d just need a small snack. So when I spotted Piece of Bake on the ground level of the outlet, it was exactly what I was looking for.

Piece of Bake is a donut chain from Osaka that I’m familiar with from my frequent visits to the city.

They serve brioche-like, melt-in-the-mouth donuts filled with all kinds of cream custard, and they always prove to be pretty satisfying for those with a sweet tooth.

They were running a promotion featuring the in-season white peach at the time.

White peach donut (518 yen) — The brioche-like choux pastry wasn’t bad.

But I thought the tangy white peach custard 🍑 wasn’t quite the perfect match. Maybe they should tweak the custard to be sweeter, with more fruity notes.

I thought I was done... but little nugget had other ideas in mind, and he’s bringing me to Eggs 'n Things next door! Somehow we always end up at this Hawaiian-themed restaurant whenever we shop at a Japanese outlet (was it last year?).

Food Rating: 5.9/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: Shop 1331, 1/F Mitsui Outlet Park Marine Pia, 12-2 Kaigandori, Tarumi-ku, Kobe, Hyogo 655-0036, Japan

Tel: +81 (0)78-742-7768

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 9:00pm daily

Truffle Donut 香川高松店 (Takamatsu, JAPAN) ★★★★☆

I knew I had to act fast when I have two stops to make in half an hour ahead of dinner. After a quick stop at Grand Maison Lowe, I headed straight over to Truffle Donut, one of my favorite Japanese doughnut chain for my second sweet treat. Thankfully, they were only 180 metres apart.

Truffle Donut is best known for its “nama” style dough, which makes for an exceptionally light, fluffy texture that practically melts in your mouth. The dough is infused with premium, aromatic truffle oil and/or truffle salt, giving it a distinct depth of flavor.

This particular branch of Truffle Donut was located on the basement level, so I had to walk roughly 10 steps down to reach the counter area.

Compared to the choices available at their Oita (大分市) outpost that I last visited during Christmas, this outlet offers far more options. 

There were the usual truffle-infused nama donut series, a separate chocolate series, and a “Flaky Donut” line which is essentially their take on cronuts (remember those?).

Unfortunately, all the chocolate series options featuring chocolate choux dough were already sold out. I’ll have to try those next time.

Matcha Nama donut (444 yen) — The Uji matcha cream was noticeably thicker with this one.

Very tasty, with the ultra-rich matcha custard working beautifully with the pillowy pumpkin-blended dough.

Salted vanilla Nama donut (398 yen) — Like most of their donuts, the cream filling was on the lighter side, and it worked surprisingly well with the truffle-infused dough. The extra saltiness from the truffle salt added an interesting twist to every bite.

Creme brulee Flaky Donut (417 yen) — I haven't had a cronut for quite some time, so this was extra special.

I really like the texture: crispy on the outside, but flaky throughout the interior. The crème brûlée flavor was also front and center — perfect for anyone with a sweet tooth.

Truffle Donut currently has 27 locations across Japan, as well as international branches in Taiwan, Thailand, and Canada, with a new opening in Hong Kong just two days ago! Overall, it now has more than 30 locations worldwide.

Food Rating: 7.2/10

Price: ￥￥￥

Address: B1F Motoya Building, 4-12 Marugamemachi, Takamatsu, Kagawa, 760-0029, Japan

Closest Train Station: Kawaramachi

Tel: +81 (0)87-897-5030

Website: https://truffledonut.com/

Opening Hours: 10:00am - 6:00pm daily