Call me a modern Eve, because I have eaten from the donut tree of knowledge. It was last January, and I was living in the food paradise known as Los Angeles. Even though I was surrounded by bounty – inexpensive Thai food, roasted-garlic pizza, beautiful burritos – I fixated on the one food I wasn't supposed to eat: the donut. (“Don't touch it,” said the god-like voice echoing in my head. “Too much sugar.”) But I was curious. So one morning, I plucked a chocolate-frosted, sprinkle-covered donut off of the tree, and I took a bite.

And suddenly, I understood donuts.

It was so light! So airy! The cake-style donut practically melted like a meringue in my mouth, and the frosting – it was none of this sticky frosting that I thought all donuts had, but a harder shell of sweetness. I went back again and again while in LA, trying maple frosted donuts, log-shaped donuts, and donuts cut in half and filled with real whipped cream.

But soon I was cast out of my donut Eden, ordered by my plane ticket to return to Philadelphia. Since then, I have understood shame: The shame of East Coast donuts.

Growing up, donuts meant one of two things: The first was Dunkin’, and I considered the chain to be nearly synonymous with the circular food. These donuts were acceptable, fine, and a sugary-sweet jelly donut was a favorite childhood treat. My other concept of donuts came from the town dump. On Saturday mornings, the men in my small town would congregate to chat after tossing their trash, eating small, homemade donuts baked by someone’s wife and available to anyone who dropped a few cents into an empty coffee can. These donuts were good – not as sweet as Dunkin’, but fresh, cakey, and delicious, so I looked forward to going to the dump with my dad so I could eat one.

As good as those homemade donuts were; they were an entirely different breed from the Los Angeleno beauties.

The people of Philadelphia have been chattering about donuts because – oh my stars and garters! – the Krispy Kreme chain is a-coming back to our city to save us from donut boredom. I will be perfectly honest: I've never had a Krispy Kreme donut. But all of this excitement piqued my interest. We’re the sixth largest city in the country and increasingly known as a food powerhouse; are there seriously no good donuts here? So, I did my research on the XL dough-Lifesavers of Philly. After talking to friends and weeding out the independent bakeries from the city's legion of Dunkin’ stops, I planned what I refer to in my head as the “Epic Donut Bike Ride” – a seven-stop trip across the city to find the best donuts.

And I had standards – I sought a cake-style donut that held up to the cake-style I had tried in California, a cream or jelly filled donut that rose above standard filled donuts (which too often taste more like pure sugar than anything else), chocolate-frosted donuts to serve as a baseline of comparison, and any wildcard donuts that might surprise me. One giant sugar high later, here’s what I’ve discovered…

Frangelli’s
At Frangelli’s, smelling like a bakery should (sugary and fragrant), I picked four donuts – jelly, chocolate-frosted, white-frosted cake-style, and a cream filled. As the woman pumped my cream-filled with a filling reminiscent of Boston cream, two guys entered the store, one explaining that the cream puffs are “bangin.” The other guy, who looked like he had a vampire bite on his neck, started picking out a dozen donuts, and explained that he wouldn't buy Cream Puff's cream puff for him.

“Why not?” asked Cream Puff.

“I just paid $10,000 bail,” said Dozen Donuts.

A cop entered; Dozen Donuts started asking – hypothetically, of course – what cops should do in a certain totally hypothetical situation having to do with a non-existent, hypothetical young man and a surplus of OxyContin.

I went outside. Cream Puff was eating his cream puff, pacing back and forth. “It's so stupid,” he said to me, referring to Dozen Donuts' cop chat. “So stupid. That's probable cause. He just got out of jail… tazed in the neck.” That explained the vampire bite.

I dug into my paper bag of donuts. They weren't like what I had in LA – these were denser, East Coast donuts – though excellent and fresh, still a little bit chewy. The cruller-like cake-style donut wasn't fluffy enough for me, but the jelly was especially wonderful, filled with a delicious, deep purple black-raspberry jam that had more flavor and body than the typical, bright-red jelly sugar goop. It is easy to understand why this would be a place that Dozen Donuts would go so soon after getting out of jail. Out of a possible 5? I’d give them a 4.5.

Atmosphere: Friendly, old-school Italian bakery. Two chairs for waiting.

Other offerings: Pastries galore.

Donuts: Dense, fresh. Don't miss the jelly, but the cake-style is too heavy.

Golden Donut
In the center of the Italian Market, caddy-corner from Paesano's, is Golden Donut. Oddly, while there wasn’t anything else that resembled Dunkin' anywhere else in the shop, the donut case had Dunkin'-colored signs in the Dunkin' font that proclaim very Dunkin'-ey names, like “Old Fashioned” and “Marble Frosted.” Though better than Dunkin’ itself, these donuts were dense and tasted like “meh,” as the inside of a chocolate-frosted one had a similar look and consistency of an over-sweetened white-flour dinner roll.

Since there are so many things you can eat in the Italian Market other than these donuts, I’d suggest that you do just that. Out of 5? I’d give these a 2.

Atmosphere: In-and-out spot; not much in the way of charm.

Other offerings: Coffee, drinks, sandwiches.

Donuts: Meh.

Dunkin' Donuts
The donuts at the ubiquitous orange-and-pink-signed shop set a low standard, but it's a standard nonetheless. I visited the 809 South Broad location, where the girl who took my order for an Old Fashioned and a chocolate glazed smiled at me so much that I wondered if something was wrong with my face, because apparently I can't accept someone just being friendly. The shop was hoppin' – friends sitting and talking at the tables; people bustling in and out for coffee. But the donuts were unsurprisingly mediocre, with that same bizarre aftertaste that seeps into all of Dunkin's sweet offerings, as if some chemical is pumped into the air whenever it's time to make the donuts. These were by far the least fresh-tasting of all the donuts I tried. Out of 5? I’d give them a 1.

Atmosphere: Orange, lots of seats.

Other offerings: Coffee, fruit-type drinks, bagels, breakfast sandwiches.

Donuts: Seriously, what is that weird aftertaste?

Sweet Freedom
With my apologies to the vegans and the allergy-ridden, I didn't actually get donuts at Sweet Freedom, the vegan, gluten-free bakery on South near Broad, but I did try. My ride was mid-week, and the girl working informed me that they only tend to make donuts on weekends. The shop was very cute – lots of cafe-style seating and nice blue walls. And a free sample of apple cake I grabbed tasted good, very moist. But the most I can say about Sweet Freedom's donuts is that they exist. Sometimes.

Atmosphere: Cute, with tables.

Other offerings: Vegan, gluten-free cupcakes, coffee cakes and other sweets, plus coffee and drinks.

Donuts: ?

Beiler's Bakery
Tucked in the back left corner of Reading Terminal Market is Beiler's Bakery, offering Pennsylvania Dutch baked goods: breads, sticky buns, and in one section of the glass case, donuts. My visit was a few days in advance of the recent Pennsylvania Dutch Festival, and as the man behind the counter handed me my donuts, he encouraged me to come back to the Market because there would be “handmade donuts,” for the festival. This was an unfortunate choice of words on his part. “If you're saying those donuts will be handmade,” I thought, “what the hell did I just buy from you?”

What I bought, it turns out, were some very good donuts. Again, like at Frangelli’s, they weren't quite the West Coast style I was looking for; these were light, but not ethereal. The cream-filled offering was a straight, sugar-cream style (as opposed to the Boston-style cream I found at Frangelli’s). My favorite here, though, was the cinnamon-sugar coated cake-style donut, which was moist, but still had the denseness and fortitude to get dunked in a cup of coffee and not completely fall apart. Yum.

Out of 5? I’d give Beilers a 4.

Atmosphere: Reading Terminal Market-ey

Other offerings: Breads, sticky buns, pies, and all sorts of other Amish goodness.

Donuts: Moderately light; great for coffee.

Fresh Donut
Tiffin's spicy smell creeped up to this Girard Ave. donut shop just down the block from the Indian joint. Inside, it was busy with people wanting water ice or change for a dollar. I got three donuts: Cake-style, chocolate-frosted, and a glazed, cream-filled, all tasting good and fresh. None were amazing, but all were acceptable. Out of 5? Fresh scored a 3.

Atmosphere: Busy, bullet-proof glass, no seats.

Other offerings: Coffee, water ice, breakfast sandwiches, etc.

Donuts: Fresh but nothing wild; what Dunkin' Donuts should be.

Donuts Plus
The story of Donuts Plus is really the story of after I left Donuts Plus. I crouched for a moment on a patch of lawn across the street to take a taste of what I purchased: A chocolate-frosted glazed, a way-too-sweet cream-filled, a jelly (with an alarmingly bright-red jelly similar to every jelly donut you've ever seen), and a white-frosted cake-style donut.

And that cake-style donut, that beautiful cake-style donut, is the closest thing I have experienced in this city to what I had in Los Angeles, the Donuts Plus donut providing a light and airy texture that crumbled so beautifully in my mouth.

As I was putting the rest of the donuts in my bag after my momentary donutgasm, a normal-looking woman, about 30 years old, came around the corner. She was holding half a muffin with one hand and started looking through a patch of clovers on the ground next to me with her other hand. “Are you looking for a four-leaf clover?” I asked.

She stood and looked at me, then looked around. I thought she didn't hear what I said, so I repeated: “Are you looking for a four-leaf clover?”

“Hm?”

“Are you looking for a four-leaf clover? You know, clovers sometimes grow with four leaves?”

And that, folks, that is when the dark tides of hell joined our conversation, in the form of the woman coming very close to me and screaming at the top of her lungs: “DO YOU KNOW ME?”

I answered, meekly, “No.”

“THEN WHY WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO ME?” She said, “something like that” with such ire that you’d think I had said that her face looked like dog balls.

“I don't know, I just thought...”

“WHY WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO ME!”

“I'm sorry.”

She paused. “I accept your apology.” The demons drain out of her. “There is something wrong with me. I can't believe I yelled at you. I am so sorry.”

If I’d had a crappy, crumbling muffin instead of my amazing cake-style, I’d probably freak out, too.

Out of 5, I’d give the donuts an overall 3, but 4.5 for cake-style.

Atmosphere: Inside: Bullet-proof glass and two video game machines; no seats, but it's very friendly. Outside: Yelling people.

Other offerings: Water ice, drinks, coffee, hot dogs.

Donuts: My favorite cake-style donut texture in the city; can pass on jelly and cream-filled.

Article photos by author, Eat Drink Philly" photograph from suvodeb, via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Philly" photograph from camardella, via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Meg Favreau is a writer and comedian living in Philadelphia. Check out her website, www.megfavreau.com.