Chow Chronicles, Cuisine, Davao, Others

TD&CO Davao Opens, Providing Handcrafted Donuts in the City

TD&CO, a Filipino-owned donut franchise, has opened its doors to showcase their beautiful handcrafted donuts to the Davaoeños last March 8, 2024. Their first store in Davao City is located at Sta Ana Drive corner L Ma Guerrero road (across Holy Cross of Davao College).

Unlike other donut franchises, their donuts are not made out of machines but are individually handcrafted. Their donuts are beautiful and aesthetically appealing that you’d end up taking a few shots before devouring them. They offer around 40 different flavors of donuts.

TD&CO stands for tea, donut, and coffee. They not only offer delicious donuts, they also offer different variety of dishes and is a nice place to get your craving in one place. They offer coffee, artisan bread, pastries, pasta, breakfast platters and more.

Apart from the food, it is a great business story as they only started as a small street-corner cafe in Marikina last 2021 (during the pandemic) and grew into a franchise giant making Davao as their second branch in Mindanao. TD&CO Marawi is the first branch. Their goal is to open more branches across the Philippines so if you are interested to open a branch in your area, you may want to hop on the Google search to find out additional information on how to franchise.

How to Get There

The store location is easily accessible as it is along the highway of Sta Ana Drive and just across Holy Cross of Davao College. It can be accessed by jeepneys or tricycle if via public transportation.

They offer their freshly baked donuts on weekdays from 7AM to 10PM, weekend and holidays from 9AM to 10PM.

When we visited, they only accept cash at the time (March 2024).

The Place and The Ambiance

The place is really huge and can accommodate many people dining and queueing. It is one of the biggest donut stores I’ve visited in Davao City that is large in capacity. At an estimate, it can accommodate at least 50 people (queueing and seated).

It is said that the interior grew inspiration from Davao’s icon such as the Philippine Eagle, Waling-Waling and Durian. However, it does give out a vibe of a typical franchise cafe like Starbucks which is nice and familiar. It is very clean and well maintained but considering it is still new, this should be expected.

When we visited, they only had a few staff so the service comes off slow and we went dining almost their closing time.

The Spending

Their donuts come in different flavors and comes at different costs. For their premium donuts it cost P68 a piece. Their supreme donuts depending on the flavor can go from P68 to P78. Their mini donuts can cost around P25. They also have artisan breads and pastries that can go around those price range as well.

Their coffee can cost P110 to P205 depending on the choice. They also have waffles, pastries, and breakfast meals.

You can click at this link to get a glimpse of their menu prices.

Review

TD&CO keeps coming into my feed from different social media influencers and I was highly interested as the donuts look very bougee.

After waiting for a couple of days after it’s opening, we visited their store last March 24. It was around closing time so majority of their donuts were already sold out. I was amazed at the lines of glass cabinets with different selection of donuts, breads, and pastries, despite it almost closing time. I think there were still around 10 selection of donuts and a lot more for the breads.

We opted for their breakfast platter which were their big breakfast chicken and waffles and tapsilog, a plate of their fish and chip as starters, one premium donut which is their boston creme, and two of their supreme donuts which is the milo crunch and yema de leche.

Their breakfast platters come with their brewed coffee. Out of all the things in the breakfast platters, I am highly delighted by their brewed coffee. It’s a coffee that has the right kick of caffeine and roasty coffee flavor I enjoy and usually look for. Frankly speaking, I was a bit disappointed with the breakfast platter with my tapsilog specifically.

The beef tapa is delicious but the fried rice was not hot or re-heated. In bisaya, the rice was very “kaging” or stiff. Their waffles isn’t waffle at all. It’s more bready than that typical pancakey texture. Their breakfast platter for me, at least for the choices we made, are just a 5/10 but the brewed coffee is a 10/10.

The fish and chips, out of all the food, we ordered was a delight. In comparison, it is not the best fish and chips I’ve had but it’s really delicious that I’d rate 7.5/10. Their fish and chips were really crispy, not soggy, and not oily at all. It’s the right ASMR crisp and very savory. They also served it with a delicious marinara dipping sauce which brings a delicious contrast to the flavor.

This is not a whole review of their donuts but of what we ordered only. We didn’t even reach a 10% of what they offer. However, of the donuts we tried my overall rating for the donut is just a solid 5. It’s not the flavor per se that gives it a solid 5 but it’s the dough they used for their donuts. The donuts are really bready and heavy. I prefer my donuts with an airy, puffy, or a cakey consistency.

However, as to the donut flavors, my favorite was the Milo crunch. It lived out the name as the chocolate was very crunchy and a fun texture. Out of all the donuts, this was a 10/10 and I highly recommend. A good point about their donuts is that it is not too sweet and well-balanced if you pair it with their brewed coffee. It is huge as well so paying for a P68 to P78 donut can guarantee to make you full or at least satiated. It is also fun to bring a box to parties or gatherings as it is a roulette of flavors.

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