Double Dragon Bar & Restaurant
1235 Division St. – Portland
$1.50
The first thing to know: this is not a macaroon.
I would not consider it a macaroon, anyway. At least not by its Wiki-definiton, which seems to conclude that the common denominator of a macaroon is an egg white and/or almond meal base. This is not that.
The second thing to know: it is the most surprisingly delicious cookie I’ve tasted in… a pretty long time.
The best way I can describe it is like this:
Somebody whipped up a nice batch of chocolate chip cookie dough – with good butter, brown sugar, and perhaps some coconut milk or cream. But instead of adding chocolate chips, they dumped a load of toasted coconut in the mixer. And a healthy pinch or two of salt.
And then they spooned up nice, big dollops of dough onto a cookie sheet and baked them, removing the pan from the oven before they appeared completely baked. But… as the cookies rested on the still-hot baking sheet, the edges of each cookie continued to brown and caramelize, while the middle remained soft, slightly chewy and doughy (without being raw).
The third thing to know: I ordered one as an afterthought – as my parents, brother and I ordered at the counter. We sat down at our table, each of us breaking off bites (of the generously sized disc) as we waited for our meals. After we ate our lunch, my (recently sugar-avoiding) dad wordlessly stood up and purchased another. And then we killed that one, too.
It was a memorable cookie at an otherwise unmemorable restaurant*
In summary: Fucking great cookie. I will eat it again.
*Sorry DD, but you need to check the dressing on your papaya salad. Alarmingly bland and unsatisfactory. Also, I’m not so down with your interpretation of bahn mi; but this is clearly a matter of taste. But the cookies? Aces. Nice job.
Putting that one on my list to try. Can one just order the cookie and not the rest of the meal?
There’s a lot of great cookie culture on SE Division, but man the traffic sucks.
Marc: Sure, they’re sitting right up by the register, where you order; just walk in, buy a coconut cookie and split. And then you can head right on up SE Division in search of another cookie- by foot. Because yeah, that traffic does suck.