Big Apple Donuts in City Mall is Kota Kinabalu’s (KK) first donut shop of its type, and beyond the initial teething problems, it’s proving quite popular.

Called Big Apple Donuts & Coffee in full, 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 quickly queues developed with which it was unable to cope, often leaving 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 cousins, 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, likely at least one to 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.

Big Apple Donuts’ 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, 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.