Common Grounds Coffee House
4321 Se Hawthorne Blvd – Portland
$1
Since I just told you about the unexpectedly delicious oatmeal cookie that I found at Common Grounds recently, I thought I may as well stay on topic and tell you about their chocolate chip.
As I mentioned in the oatmeal post, I was alerted by on of my main chipster tipsters that the chocolate chip cookie here is straight up Toll House, super basic and pleasing. No nuts, nothing fancy – just old school, after-school special style. But so far I’ve bypassed the ccc, honing in on the oatmeal and, on my last visit, was unable to resist taking home a chunk of their homey, unadorned gingerbread – which I did not regret for a split second. It was some top notch G-bread. And if you dig that sort of thing, you need to get some in your mouth, stat. (I drooled a little bit onto my keyboard just thinking about it, if you want to know the truth.)
Okay, so back to the cookie at hand. I popped into Common Grounds only moments ago and forced myself to buy the chocolate chip, even though it didn’t look so promising. But I remembered that their superior (and oft-aforementioned oatmeal) was very much a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and I figured that its unimpressive appearance should not be taken too literally.
Somehow Common Grounds (who bakes all of their pastries on site, by the way) manages to make what looks like a dry and cakey cookie be moist and awesome and completely the opposite of dry and cakey on the inside. Check out that that top photo: not promising. But don’t be fooled; this cookie has shit goin’ on. Moist and slightly doughy, an ideal balance of chips to brown sugar cookie-ness. Because, I’m sorry, there IS such a thing as too many chips and I am a firm believer that the non-chip areas of a chocolate chip cookie should stand alone as a delicious experience, sans chips. In other words, a harmony of good, dark brown sugar, real butter, salt and proper baking time are all just as integral to the success of the cookie as the chips that occupy it. And if there are too many chips in a cookie, you don’t get to experience the brown sugary, butter goodness. A chocolate chip cookie should not be a one-man show. Rather, the chips should accent – or at the very most – act a co-star to the cookie as a whole.
Which leads me to my only criticism of this cookie: the quality of the chocolate could be a little better. They seemed practically milk chocolate, though were likely just a relatively low-grade of commercial chocolate chips. I’m guessing this allows the shop to keep the price at an exceptionally low $1, but I would gladly pay $1.50 for this player if CG would splurge on even the most basic level of Guittard chips.
But like I said, it’s a basic, nothin’ fancy lunchbox ccc – done quite perfectly. And for an uncommonly fair price. Recommended.