NORTH AUGUSTA – EN Donuts, a recently opened doughnut shop at 1692 Knox Ave., serves up a variety of sweet and savory items with an international flavor.
The letters “e” and “n” in EN Donuts are a nod to owners Nat Lim’s and Tina Kea’s children, Elena, 5, and Nolan, 8. The owners has many years of experience as bakers, but this is their first doughnut shop. The grand opening was March 8.
They start working at 2 a.m. each day to get fresh baked goods ready for their customers and continue into the late afternoon. Their eclectic, international variety of doughnuts and pastries includes mochinuts, doughnuts with sugary cereal on them, sweet croissants and red velvet doughnuts among others. The mochinut is often stated to be a combination of the American doughnut and Japanese mochi.
“Mochi is made with a sticky rice mixture,” said Nat Lim, who is from Cambodia and has lived in Georgia for about 20 years.
About an hour before closing Tuesday, March 12, they had sold out of these particular high-demand doughnuts as a steady stream of customers came into the shop.
“We are very busy,” Lim said.
In addition to the sweet treats, the couple offers a variety of savory items including Vietnamese subs.
“They are served on small baguettes, and the pickled cucumber, carrot, and papaya on the Vietnamese sub give it flavor,” Lim said.
The baguette came into the Vietnam area during the French occupation in the late 1800s. The Vietnamese adapted it into their cuisine. For their Vietnamese subs, they offer meat choices include ham, turkey and pork.
Another food item with an international twist is the Texas kolache. The kolache was brought into Texas by Czech immigrants and often has a pillowy texture with a sweet interior. The immigrants made a puffy, yeasty dough for the kolaches, but the Texans changed theirs up a bit. The Texas kolaches at EN Donuts are often savory, have sausage inside, and are more like pigs in a blanket than sweet treats. EN Donuts has a regular variety as well as jalapeno variety.
They also offer specialty baked items such as apple fritters, cinnamon rolls, bear claws, cream cheese Danish and bagels. They have breakfast sandwiches as well as croissant sandwiches.
On the drink menu, they have Thai teas, boba milk teas, fruit teas, smoothies with approximately 10 flavor options, coffee and soft drinks.
EN Donuts is open from 5:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday or until they run out of baked goods.
Correspondent Ron Baxley Jr. is a veteran journalist who has worked with multiple news organizations in his career. Subscribe to the Augusta Good News’ newsletter here.
