places to go…

Uncle Biff’s, California’s Killer Cookies
650 University Av, Hillcrest, San Diego

This is, amazingly enough, a business, in a shopping center, selling about 12 different cookies, for $1.50 from about 10am-5pm, no Sundays, and somehow, they keep the doors open, why? I think it’s really because Hillcrest <3’s cookies. NYC has cupcakes, we have KILLER COOKIES (and maybe some internet sales). That and they have a giant red, neon sign that reads “KILLER” COOKIES, informing anyone who may drive by, that nothing else in that shopping center is nearly as important to you as this place. It haunts my dreams.

On to the goods. These are very good cookies. Can my (best, though irrelevant) friend Chef Amelia, make better? Yes. Can the Whole Foods in Chapel Hill, NC make better? Yes. But are either of them in my neighborhood and 7 blocks from my house and $.19 cheaper than the ones in the mega-Whole Foods that look smashed in the dry case they’ve been in for who-knows-how-long? No. One is in Portland, OR, and the other is obviously almost 3k miles away.

Don’t get me wrong, these are by no means sub-par cookies. These are delicious, (very often) freshly out of the oven, thick, soft cookies. They will never have a crispy edge or be lacking of the good stuff (butter) that makes them so good. It is probably my favorite thing in the world to do with $1.50 right now. They are all very simple, loved by all flavors, with choices for the oatmeal raisin/chocolate chip lover; the milk/dark chocolate chip lover; the dark/white chocolate macadamia lover; and even options for how you want your peanut butter cookie (with or without chocolate chips or nested in a double chocolate chip cookie). Walnut, pecan or toffeed almond nut options are also given to most of the varieties. I should also note that they have offer their dough for sale so you can make them at home, or top ice cream with it, or roll around on the floo– yeah. Dough. By the pound.

So, all in all, this is a fabulous little store, that really needs a late night. It only gets @@@ because with their resources, i.e. the whole store, they should use better chocolate and make the cookies about 5% better and they’d be perfect. But I think they’ve been using the same recipe for like 40 years, so that’s not going to happen. With all the excellent chocolate out there, there’s no excuse not to use it.