Photo du Jour 516
Welcome Back! Um, Why Are You at Work Today?
Tiger Woods In "Serious" Condition After Car Crash
-thumb-110x110-461569.jpg)
Photos from Black Friday
SFist Interviews: John Ortved, Author of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History
When looking for expertise on cookies, we turn to Amber Adrian, aka the Moose in the Kitchen, who has extensive experience making and eating them. So much we asked her to shed some light for us on the hot cookie scene in San Francisco. This is part one of a multi-part series, part II a week from today.
Cookies are humankind's single greatest creation. Brain surgery, motorized vehicles, the world wide web - all are helpless against the restorative power of the cookie. Surgeons forget to tie off a vein, cars need mysterious things like timing belts, the internet eats your blog post. But cookies never fail. Even a stale Nutter Butter is better than botched brain surgery.
To help you reach your peak potential for cookie consumption, we present a series on the very best cookies in San Francisco. Because we didn't personally sample each and every cookie in this fair city, we can't claim that this is a complete list. If we did, we would be admitting kinship with those burger joints in the Mississippi back roads that herald the "World's Best Burger." Dude. Have you eaten a hamburger at every health-code-violating shack on earth? No? THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW? This is not a Mississippi back road and we pride ourselves on not taking a stand. Instead, we will share the extensive investigation due such a worthy topic (frankly, we've done less research for college term papers) and proffer the cookies our discerning palates deem Pretty Damn Good. Get your pencils ready.
SFist Amber, contributing. Check out the list after the jump.
Specialty's: Any place that sells yesterday's cookies for half-price is the obvious winner - and not just because we love a sale. Walk into Specialty's and the sweet scent of baking sugar enfolds you like that down comforter you stole from your ex. Fresh cookies are always emerging from the oven so your treat will be warm and not in that cheating "we just tossed this in the microwave" way. Many a Specialty's cookie has plunged down our gullet, but for the purposes of this article we tried a black and white. White and dark chocolate dissolves lovingly on the tongue until...words fail us. Words never fail us. Take that for the accolade it is.
Citizen Cupcake: Corporate culture detractors will find this an inappropriate choice, but the first stop on our personal cookie tour was the Virgin Megastore. Citizen Cupcake hides in a corner of the third floor. If your sugar sensor needs fine-tuning, simply head to the classical music section and look behind the magazine rack. You should find an airy room with many cupcakes. And sandwich cookies that are the discriminating taster's Oreo. Available in chocolate, lemon and ginger, with filling far removed from the lard-based classic, they're sweet enough to make you glad you didn't sugar up your latte. We ate one of each because this is investigative journalism at its finest, folks.
Progressive Grounds: After raiding our piggy bank for quarters, we head down the street to devour a peanut butter chocolate dipped cookie at Progressive Grounds coffee shop. The cookies are made in Berkeley and wrapped in plastic. What they lack in that fresh-baked goodness, they atone for in wholesome, eminently pronounceable, ingredients. They even unbleached the flour for our personal consumption. These cookies have often rewarded our lackadaisical "write ten words and then you can have another cookie" goals and Progressive Grounds, with its maroon walls and Billie Holiday, is a pleasant place to spray cookie crumbs while typing out the two sentences necessary for another snack.
Next week, we venture into the wilds of the Castro to test Hot Cookie and to the Ferry Building in hopes that Miette is open. P.S. If you happen to be in the Ferry Building on a Monday and pressing your face woefully against the closed doors of Miette does nothing, Lulu Petite will cure your chocolate chip craving.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
If you are in downtown Oakland, the place to go for freshly baked cookies is Aroma Cafe on 19th and Harrison. Open from early till ~5pm during the week.
dont forget toms cookies in the macys food court. the mexican chocolate chip is amazing. and you have to try one of the neiman marcus cafe chocolate chip cookies. they are my favorite at the moment. they bake them there and i have had the luck to have some that were fresh from the oven. amazing.
In doing your survey of cookies, do yourself a favor and head to the southeast corner of the ferry building where Boulettes Larder is. They have a chocolate chocolate chip cookies that must have crack in it. They are exquisite. Also try the apricot and raspberry thumbprints, where are delish. (FYI: Sharffenberger also has a decent chocolate chip cookie.)