Coquine
6839 SE Belmont St. – Portland
$2
Coquine is a (relatively) high end, full service restaurant at dinner time, featuring seasonable and sustainable food in a lovely, comfortable setting. It is situated in an otherwise residential neighborhood next to Mount Tabor in SE Portland.
But in the morning through lunchtime, it is a casual (while still, of course, lovely and comfortable) counter service joint, featuring several great-looking and sounding pastries like buttermilk buckwheat scones, maple biscuits, gingerbread, etc. But because their chocolate chip cookies had been exalted with such exceptional praise, my choice had already been made.
Okay, yes. This is a good chocolate chip cookie. Very good. The texture is what I consider fairly perfect: soft, chewy insides encased in a crisp, slightly rigid exterior.
Also:
• smoked almonds. I would not have detected these had I not just read in the review that they were in there. But I am excited by the idea of smoked almonds in a chocolate chip cookie so I will pay closer attention next time.
• high quality, deep dark chocolate makes its appearance (I’m pretty sure) in feve form as opposed to classic chips. I prefer the latter. I know I’ve said this more than once but there really is such a thing as too much chocolate in a ccc. If I could art direct every ccc I ever put in my mouth, the chocolate would serve as accents in an already great cookie, not as the overbearing superstar. This, I have found, is seldom the reality in profesh-baked cookies.
• purported to contain browned butter, creating a “toffee flavor that rampages through each bite.” I did not taste the toffee/browned butter, frankly. This could be fixed by using less chocolate and letting the non-chipped, brown sugar/butter (aka toffee flavor) part of the cookie shine – and also using a little more salt (there seemed not to be much in the one I tasted). A good ccc should be able to stand alone, sans chocolate, as a great cookie. (see above).
• nitpicking aside, this really is one of the very best chocolate chip cookies in Portland. I will buy it again, preferably with some nice salt close at hand.
Thanks for putting Coquine on my radar. I’ll check it out and let you know how the other pastries are… or meet you there and tell you in person.
Beth: Putting cookies (and pastries) on your radar is the name of my game.
Re telling me how they are in person: deal!