When people ask for the best apple fritter, I send them to Monarch Donuts in Arcadia. The tiny brick-facade building with the faded rust-colored awning is where owner Jonathan Ung makes an apple fritter unlike any other.
It’s paler than most, with big, rolling hills of dough fused together like good monkey bread under a glossy landscape of sugar glaze that never really hardens. The pillowy dough is flecked with cinnamon and crowded with tender chunks of apple. It’s just sweet enough, delicate and even refined. I have woken up while it’s still dark and driven across town for this fritter.
For the last decade, there’s been a steady line of people waiting outside of the shop, long before Ung slides the walk-up window open at 5 a.m. It’s one of the most diverse crowds in the city, with a mix of moms cradling sleeping babies, cops in uniform, men in hard hats, suits and everyone in between, their eyes all trained on the shelves of crullers, glazed twists and sprinkle-coated doughnuts.
Ung usually arrives at 1 a.m., and prepares about 1,500 doughnuts, or enough to fill the front shelf at least six or seven times. Once he’s finished, he makes doughnuts for nearby churches, schools and whoever else requests a preorder…