A Glazed & Amused thread
A Portuguese doughnut, a Honolulu bakery, and a Tuesday with a new name.
A malasada is a Portuguese doughnut. No hole, fried soft, finished with a crackly sugar coating.
Leonard Rego Sr. and his wife Margaret were grandchildren of Portuguese plantation immigrants. In 1952 they opened a bakery on Kapahulu Avenue in Honolulu. Leonard's mother suggested frying malasadas for Shrove Tuesday. They sold so well they never left the menu. Now much of Hawaii calls Fat Tuesday Malasada Day.
Now much of Hawaii calls Fat Tuesday Malasada Day.
Check the date
Rolling out the map…
Positions are approximate, town-level.
Honolulu, HI · since 1952
Where Malasada Day started. The Rego family still runs it, now in the third generation, and fries thousands of malasadas on Fat Tuesday morning.
Honokaa, HI · since 1969
Ernest "Tex" Texeira and his wife Elizabeth opened it in 1969 in an old sugar-plantation town on the Big Island. The malasadas are large and square, plain or filled with mango, guava, haupia or Bavarian cream. They put Tex in the Hawaii Restaurant Association Hall of Fame in 2018.
Makawao, HI · since 1916
Takezo Komoda opened a plantation-town store on Maui in 1916. It became a full bakery in 1947, and his granddaughter runs it today. Come for the guava malasadas. Stay for the stick donuts.
Lihue, HI
Hawaii Magazine readers voted its malasadas the best in the state in 2021.
Honolulu, HI
Malasadas made to order in classic, cocoa, coffee, li hing and cinnamon. The Malamode puts ice cream inside one.
Honolulu, HI
Better known for poi-glazed donuts, but the malasadas are here too.
Middletown, RI
A 24-hour Aquidneck Island shop that makes Portuguese malassadas alongside more than 42 kinds of doughnuts.
La Plata, MD
Hawaiian-style malasadas, sweet, savory and vegan, in Charles County.
Same Tuesday, different tradition. See Pączki Day.
Portuguese bakers brought these to Hawaii and they never left. Something similar probably happened where you live, with somebody else's grandmother's recipe. Go find it.
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