This July 1, just yards from the shores of Lake Erie and a few miles south of Buffalo, New York, a special treat was waiting for adventurous eaters if they knew where to look. Canada had a birthday and extremely Canadian donut shop Tim Hortons decided to make some special menu items in an extremely small selection of its United States stores.
What’s the most Canadian thing you can think of? Passive-aggressive kindness? Hockey? Poutine? Well, if it’s that last one, Tim Hortons was the place to be. They offered a Poutine Donut, a Maple-bacon Iced Cappuccino and Maple TimBits, which are Timmy Ho’s-branded donut holes.
The Canada Day menu was only available at five Tim Hortons stores in the United States, with three of them in the Buffalo area. As the only Buffalo Area Resident at Uproxx I was tasked to find a Tim Hortons restaurant that had the goods and try them for myself.
The parking lot was completely full when I showed up to the Lakeshore Road coffee shop around 11 a.m. on Saturday. I had to park in a lot across the street and walk over, eying up an overflowing drive thru lane that made me wonder if there would be any poutine donuts around to even purchase in the first place.
Thankfully, though the Tim Hortons was short staffed with human beings they had plenty of gravy and cheese curds. I ordered 10 Maple TimBits, a medium Maple-bacon Iced Cap and, of course, one Poutine Donut. The staff, though clearly frazzled, was extremely polite. The woman at the counter got my TimBits, then said she would bring the donut and Iced Cap to my table. The donut arrived in a cardboard clamshell, like a Big Mac would at a less-Canadian fast food restaurant.
So let’s talk about this donut. I feel uniquely qualified to discuss it because not seven days ago I ate an Everything Bagel Donut, which is a donut topped with everything bagel fixings, cut in half and sandwiched around whipped cream cheese. It was incredible and wholly terrible for me. This Poutine Donut is in a similar vein.
Digging in with the provided plastic fork, I was surprised how well this works. The unglazed donut is basically another kind of fry, in theory. And it doesn’t have much in the way of sweet to clash the fries and gravy. The curds were a bit warm so they didn’t have a snap or squeak like they often do, but this is fast food. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
The potato wedges that topped the donut, however, were surprisingly good! A bit salty, but well-seasoned for a place that doesn’t normally sell fries. If they just put the wedges on the menu, I’d order them without gravy or cheese curds. They tasted different than the donut itself, but it was a satisfying mix when you got all the ingredients on the same fork.
This is not a hand donut, though. It’s served with a fork for a reason. The workers prepared it with gloves, essentially dressing a donut with poutine ingredients and serving it like an open-faced sandwich. You can’t pick this up—it’d be far too messy and the toppings would fall off and leave you with just a plain donut covered in gravy.
But is it a donut I need in my life more than once? Not necessarily. Mostly because it doesn’t scream breakfast. I was definitely glad I went in the late morning and saved the TimBits for after as a “dessert.” I’m also glad, though, to have had this experience in my life. I just don’t know if I’d go back for seconds if it ever returns to the menu.
The Maple TimBits didn’t blow me away as a specialty item, but they are quite good. You get a hint of maple in them but it isn’t particularly strong when matched with the granulated sugar they’re topped with. These are the only thing the location ran out of while I was there, though, so maybe they went quicker than they expected.
The highlight of the experience by far was people wandering into the Tim Hortons and tentatively ask if they had the special items. I’d say about half the people who came in wanted them, but there was no signage to indicate this location contained rare treasures. Some people had tried other stores before arriving and came up empty. Others were Canadians furious they had to visit America to celebrate Canada Day. That made for tremendous people watching.
The Iced Cap wasn’t all that different from an ordinary Iced Cap, which is pretty delicious. A portion of bacon pieces, maple glaze, and maple flakes topped the frozen drink after the plastic lid is filled with whipped cream. Problem is unless I wanted to vigorously stir it with the flimsy plastic straw there was little chance I was getting any maple or bacon flavor until the end.
When you DO get to the bacon, it’s actually a pretty fun combination of flavors. The bacon and maple balance the sweet chocolaty flavor of the cappuccino in a way that surprised me. I would say there was a bit too much bacon there, though. It got pretty weird at the end when there was only bacon to chew on soaked in a bunch of whipped cream. It’s a fun quirk for Canada Day, but I’m not exactly going to miss this the rest of my life.
I don’t think I’ll be adding bacon bits and maple flakes to every iced coffee I ever drink, but it was a fun celebration of quasi-Canadian culture on a rainy Saturday morning on the American shores of Lake Erie.
