If there is some part of you that likes doughnuts– any part, no matter how tiny– you need to head to Alpha Donuts in Sunnyside, Queens immediately. The baked goods you’ll find there are not gourmet Lower East Side doughnuts, big as a football and sold in flavors such as Chipotle-Lemon, Fennel, and Dryer Lint. No, these are old-fashioned, traditional yeast and cake doughnuts of the variety that Dunkin’ Donuts has spent decades trying to recreate. But these are the real thing– made fresh, on-site, every day, in more than 20 styles, and served in a coffee shop that appears not to have changed since the end of WWII.

HungryMan and I have spent the past week sampling doughnuts and muffins from Alpha, sharing our fried dough bounty with anyone and everyone who’s willing to take a little bite, and the universal agreement is that these are some truly excellent treats. Our first visit was a trial-run, during which we purchased one lone chocolate glazed cake doughnut ($0.70). But it was that rich, still-warm snack, eaten greedily on our subway ride back to Manhattan (pace, MTA police), that convinced us to head back the very next day to the 46th/Bliss stop on the 7 line for more evidence.

The next night, we ate a light dinner in anticipation of the tasting to come: a full-scale, eight doughnut battery designed to leave us with no doubt about the quality of Alpha Donuts’ product. To keep ourselves from becoming stuffed after the first two doughnuts, we cut bite-sized, wedge-shaped slices from each of the pastries, with the understanding that at the end, we might want to return to finish off one (or two) that we particularly enjoyed. We also organized the tasting by flavor, starting with the lighter doughnuts and ending with the richest.

Our three favorites of the night were: (1) the Boston cream (with sprinkles), a light, chocolate-glazed yeast doughnut filled with thick vanilla custard; (2) the simple plain sugar-raised yeast doughnut, lighter than cotton balls and astoundingly non-greasy; and (3) the toasted coconut crunch cake doughnut, infused with very soft aromas of nutmeg. I also thought the chocolate coconut cake doughnut was pretty spectacular, and HungryMan felt the same way about the crumb-topped apple-filled yeast doughnut, which tasted very nearly like a slice of apple pie.

Other flavors, such as the marble cake doughnut, the strawberry-filled yeast doughnut, and the crumb-topped yeast doughnut were almost as good. HungryMan and I finished off the chocolate coconut cake doughnut and the apple crumb doughnut, and the rest of the box went with HungryMan to work the following day, where Candide proclaimed them “really wonderful.” Meanwhile, I took advantage of a break in my own workday to head back to Sunnyside for another visit. This time, I sat at the formica counter that unfurls itself, serpentine, from the cash register to the kitchen, and ordered a fresh, homemade toasted blueberry muffin ($1.oo) and an iced coffee ($1.50). I have eaten hundreds of muffins in this city, at least a tenth of which have been blueberry, and not one of those is half as perfect as what I ate at Alpha Donuts: soft inside without being gummy, sweet and salty from a razor-thin layer of butter spread over the split interior, and dotted with constellations of blueberry pieces throughout. I have no idea where the blueberries come from, or what kind they are, and I really don’t care– what matters most here is that the final product is superb. As I sat at the counter, I even gave serious consideration to looking for an apartment in Sunnyside.

My iced coffee was decent, as well. I suspect that the hot, brewed coffee is probably much better (it certainly smelled good), and from the frequency with which the one lone server ground new beans and refilled the percolator, I’ll venture a guess that a new pot of java comes out of the machine at least a few times an hour. Customers at Alpha Donuts also seem to drink quite a bit of the stuff, sitting and chatting with the waitress, grill cook, and baker. As one patron remarked, “Hey, I’ve been here for eight hours already– I’ll get to see the next shift start,” I got the distinct impression that it’s probably pretty common for customers to park themselves at the counter for hours at a stretch, and that seems to suit everyone concerned just fine. This is a restaurant where the staff address patrons by name when they walk through the front door, a place where the cashier sees a customer on the sidewalk and bags her doughnut for her before she has even set foot inside– it is exactly the kind of coffee shop that makes you reconsider everything you have ever heard about unfriendly New Yorkers… and unhealthy doughnuts.

Alpha Donuts, 45-16 Queens Boulevard (at 46th Street)– just outside the 46th/Bliss station on the 7 line, Sunnyside, Queens