Not too long ago I received a text from my colleague Claire Carusillo about a new menu item at Dunkin’. The text said: “What’s going on at Dunkin’ Donuts with the omelet bites shaped like donuts,” and the message was accompanied by this photo:
I hadn’t yet seen these omelet bites; they were introduced only a few weeks ago. But Claire’s photo was enough to make me wonder: What’s going on at Dunkin’ Donuts with the Omelet Bites shaped like donuts?
As a foodie who is known for her egg trick, and a writer who has covered the goings-on at Dunkin’ at least twice, I felt it was my responsibility to encounter the Omelet Bites ($5.29) first-hand and bring word of the experience to you, even though the bites do not look tempting at all and in fact look quite hideous. Luckily I’m a brave culinary adventurer with limitless food-based curiosity (similar to Antoni from Queer Eye).
Of course, before experiencing the Omelet Bite in reality, I had a few questions about it:
- Why is it shaped like that?
I guess I actually just had that one question. My guess was that someone in Dunkin’s test kitchen came up with the idea to cook Dunkin’s egg mixture in their silicone donut molds and market the result as a “new” product. I sort of fell in love with the thought of a resourceful employee pitching this idea; making magic out of what was available, like a hardscrabble mother who is doing a good job despite various difficulties. (The difficulties in this case I imagined to be supply chain issues.)
But some Googling revealed the fact that Starbucks has a similar product, known as Egg Bites ($4.95), and this is just a rip-off of that. Oh. Still, reusing their donut mold was inspired. Or so I thought.
What this image is supposed to show is that Dunkin’s Omelet Bites are, in fact, much smaller than their donuts, ruling out the possibility of the two items sharing the same baking apparatus. But what I know this image is actually showing is that the Omelet Bites look like the eggy butthole of a small egg-based animal.
I’m sorry to say so, and to show you this. I truly am. But more than I dislike saying butthole and talking about buttholes, I dislike lying about a plain truth, and the truth here is that these Omelet Bites look like little buttholes. Oh, which brings me back to their size. Here, I’ll put a Munchkin in the hole to more accurately show their smallness:
Really, more Munchkin-sized than donut-sized. And really, more bundt cake-shape than donut-shape. So they weren’t being creatively economical at all. They weren’t using the tools they already had at their disposal. They weren’t being hardscrabble mothers; they were being wasteful fathers. They had the idea for a donut-based egg product and created a new egg mold to fit it. But why is the egg product, with a hole, meant to be reminiscent of a donut?
Well, now my guess is that they think “donut shape” is their brand identity. Of course this angers me on behalf of donuts, due to the fact that Dunkin’ recently dropped “Donuts” from their brand name, so it’s kind of like … which is it, then? Do you hate donuts, or are donuts your main thing? Do you only like them when you can use them to rip off Starbucks in a way that is sort of different? Are you a fucking prick, or do you care (about donuts)? In terms of Dunkin’, the answer has never been more unclear.
And now to review the bites. They come in two flavors, bacon and cheddar or egg white and veggie, and I chose the latter. They tasted like the eggs that come in Dunkin’s egg white and veggie flatbread or Wake-Up Wrap options, because that’s the eggs that they are. Except now they’re in a chunk you eat with your hands — I don’t know why. They’re eggy, but somehow in sort of a sour way. They have chunks of I guess vegetables in them. They make your hand a little greasy, because you’re eating an omelet chunk with your hand. Not really a positive experience. Eat the buttholes if you want, but I’m not necessarily going to suggest it.
