My youngest daughter – Kai-Lin just had her 8th birthday – and she asked to visit the nearest Krispy Kreme Doughnut Shop – which happens to be near a by-pass surrounded by several building sites – not far from New Malden and Raynes Park (Shannon Corner to be precise). My partner – Gee – (and both our daughters) visited this place two-years ago – but cannot remember the standards being so appallingly low. We usually, on special occasions, pay a lot more money for a small number of tasty doughnuts – sold in our local Supermarkets – under the “Krispy Kreme” logo. Obviously, we are not happy with the price (locally produced doughnuts are far cheaper and more numerous) but we put up with this exploitation as the standard of the ingredients, filling, and cooking standards usually justifies the difference in price. There is a limit to our patience, however, particularly when the price rises even higher – and the number of doughnuts in the box dramatically reduce!
We were working from the logical assumption that as the doughnuts being sold in our local Supermarket are so good (despite the ridiculous price) – if we made the effort to visit the nearest official Krispy Kreme Outlet – then surely all the produce in the store would be of the highest calibre – and that this experience would serve as a positive birthday treat for our daughter. How wrong we were. Yes – like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory – we did get to see inside the “secret realm” – and witness the proto-doughnuts as they magically appear on a long and winding platform serving as a conveyor-belt – feeding the dough-balls through a deep-pan fryer:
I suspect this area (Shannon Corner) used to be a village in the times before large chunks of Surrey were macheted-off to former “Outer London”. Today, it is basically an off-ramp for a nearby by-pass – motorway – and a place devastated by poverty and lack of investment. Between wholesale building warehouses – the place is littered with neglected open-spaces and building site featuring unfinished projects. In the middle of all this, a tramline meanders through the area. All in all, this is a place that is difficult to find (mostly because it is situated between a number of places) – and somewhere you would not want to stop due to the general sense of fatigue and odd attitude of some of the locals. Putting all this aside, the coffee served by Krispy Kreme tasted like dishwater. Adding sugar made no difference – not even sweetness. This coffee was worse than the cheapest economy coffee I have been given on cheap airlines – or when eating in greasy-spoon cafes. My doughnut was supposed to contain raspberry jam as a filling – but I was left trying to eat a large ball of badly cooked dough – (empty of any filling) until I reached the extremity of one side. Then a slither of raspberry jam-syrup presented itself (about the size of a match-stick) – but I had to wash-down this monstrosity with a cup of f’ckning awful coffee! My eldest daughter – Mei-An – refused to finish a milkshake which tasted of nothing whatsoever – and seemed to be made merely cold e-numbers in a cup! A cup of non-descript chemicals, no less. Still, we put a brave face on it – as if we were in the “Blitz” – and the Nazi German bombing will not break our spirit of resistance! This was a thoroughly weird and mystifying experience considering how much this US firm charges us – British people – to frequent their premises and taste their wares! Obviously, I am a man of considerably compromise. Should a Krispy Kreme Executive feel compelled to offer my family a voucher of some kind – then I would be more than willing to accept this gift and moderate my tome! I will not hold my breath…
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 