Offbeat Eats

While the pandemic has definitely hit a lot of restaurants and bakeries hard, those places that are either primarily or entirely takeout found themselves uniquely situated to weather this particular storm; hang up a few plexiglass screens, and potentially update to a new POS system, and you’re good to go. So donut shops seem to have done quite well during the last year, and most of the shops I’ve ventured into are doing quite the business. However, my local area is basically just three different “donut” operations: Dunkin (meh), Lou’s (good cider donuts, awesome crullers), and Muriel’s (the ne plus ultra of deep-fried, lard-laden crispy cake donuts). But sometimes I crave a good bear claw, a fritter, or, best yet, a Boston Cream donut, and getting good versions of those requires a bit of travel. In this case, recent work obligations have me again traveling frequently to Boxborough, MA to do vibration and thermal testing (in the parlance, the “shake and bake”), and my best traffic-avoiding route takes me right by a favorite donut shop: Ruby Donut in Ayer, MA.

Well, it’s been a while since my last update. I haven’t been traveling much, mostly hitting up local favorites like Worthy Burger. But some recent projects at work have caused me to spend a lot of time testing, and as a result, I’ve spent a rather large amount of time in Massachusetts at a subcontractor around Fort Devens and Boxborough. Like a lot of my work destinations, the area is pleasant enough, but it’s not an area with a lot of notable food options. Indeed, it takes a bit of research to find anything other than the restaurant associated with the hotel… if you know otherwise, please let me know! But when looking at various local reviews, there was one place nearby that did get consistently good reviews: Woo Jung.