Sweedeedee Café
5202 N Albina Ave – Portland
$2
Looks like I’m in the middle of a chocolate chip moment. This is not usually my first choice cookie, but I’ve regained some love for it after several years of neglect. I don’t know..I guess I feel that there are so many average to bad ccc’s around – more so than any other cookie, it seems to me.
But man, I sure loved that one from Macrina Bakery last month. And also the perfectly under baked Chocolate Chunk Pecan from Pearl – both top notch and worth a detour.
Sweedeedee has been open for a couple of months at the most and it might be my new favorite café in town. Just…quality food, prepared simply and elegantly. No fuss. I’ll let these photos speak for themselves.
Not surprisingly, their chocolate chip cookies (which were available on both of my visits) hit the mark. The only thing I would do differently is (and I KNOW this is a divisive point with regard to ccc’s) is to use a bit less chocolate. You see, the chocolate sort of hogged space in the cookie – a statement that is actually a compliment to the cookie maker, not an insult. I mean, if the (non chocolated part of the) cookie weren’t so delicious on its own, I wouldn’t mind.
This is what I’m talking about:
• deep flavors of brown sugar and good, real butter
• crisp edges with a non-crisp yet stiff interior
• no nuts (= more real estate left for the cookie dough and chocolate)
• delicious
But if my only complaint with a chocolate chip cookie is the heavy hand with its use of high quality, bittersweet chocolate, then it is fair to say (especially depending on where you stand on the issue) that Sweedeedee’s is right up there.