New York City Cookie Wars

City Bakery, arguably, has a monopoly on the World's Tastiest Cookies. Their inside-out chocolate chip cookie (a cocoa-blackened cookie with white chocolate chips), their wonderfully spiced and crunchy oatmeal-raisin cookie, and their melted chocolate cookie all feature as obsessions in many people's minds. Many people also happen to adore their chocolate chip cookie - a chewy, wondrous study of caramelized sugar and butter and large chunks of chocolate. But the other day, at a work meeting, no less, I came across the chocolate chip to unseat all chocolate chip cookies.

Jacques Torres' Chocolate Haven, a shrine to all things chocolate in SoHo, has created a chocolate chip cookie that might be the world's best chocolate chip cookie. I'm not going to get into the specifics of the possible ingredients and/or techniques that might have led to this creation, because really the only thing that pulls it above average and into the stratosphere of mind-blowing, is how he managed to get shards of chocolate into every single corner of the cookie. Each bite gives you a crispety-crunch of cookie, a melting ooze of chocolate, and an all-around sense of pure bliss. It is the best way to give yourself a stomach-ache.