It's odd, really.  It's not part of the image at all.  But it's true.  LA has tons and tons of donut stores, mostly little independent places.  They often have distinctly different styles, and little variations or specialty donuts.  One that I often went to near my old house, Star 999 Donuts, was run by Koreans, and they but blueberries in almost all their glazes and frostings, and in several of their batters.  Another, USA donuts, was Armenian, I think, and had this unusual volcano-like donut.  It was like a conical buttermilk bar, with a dollop of jelly filling at the top.  I still love those things.

People who move to LA comment have made puzzled comments about the ubiquity of the donut stores, as it's just not something one expects.  I, on the other hand, was shocked by the lack thereof when I moved to Michigan.  Where are all the donut stores, I wondered?  I was further demoralized by the fact that the only donuts available widely were Tim Hortons and Dunkin Donuts.  Tim Hortons seems to focus on cremes and filled donuts, of which I'm not a huge fan, and Dunkin Donuts is just kind of average in everything, with a focus on mediocre novelties.

As a result of my residence in donut paradise, I never got the Krispy Kreme thing.  They're decent glazed cake donuts, yeah, but so what?  This was not helped by the fact that they use a touch of maple syrup in their frosting, enough that it carries the awful bitter metal aftertaste that all maple gives me.

Recently, Donut Plant from New York has become popular with more upscale places for their interestingly flavored cake donuts.  Starbucks carries their donuts.  They know how to make good frostings and glazes, I'll give them that, but they flub the most basic part, the cake.  Far too oily, dense, and heavy.  However, they are the best donuts available in Japan. :-(