Nuvrei Patisserie
404 NW 10th Avenue – Portland
$2
Nuvrei, a Portland bakery supplying superior almond croissant, berry brioche and an exceptionally fantastic flourless chocolate chewy cookie to the city’s best coffee shops, has opened a retail café above their bakery in The Pearl District. In case you’ve never had a Nuvrei item in your mouth before, let me spell it out for you: this is great news.
Note: This meringue is sitting on a dinner plate, not a saucer, not a salad plate. What I’m saying is: this is a big-ass cookie.
The Bread Peddler
222 Capitol Way North – Olympia, WA
$1.35
Meringue, probably more than most cookies (and pie toppers, for that fact), is divisive. I have friends who ADORE meringue, and others who tell me that it is not so much different than eating a stick of sidewalk chalk. I am not sure if I know anyone who sits on the fence with meringue, anyone who says: “eh, it’s alright. I can take it or leave it.” A person will either take it – with gusto, or leave it – happily. And like all matters of taste, there is no accounting for it. We likes what we likes.
Whole Foods Market
Portland – various locations
$1.99
Is it a cookie? Or is it a confection? It’s sitting behind the glass next to all the other cookies, but I’d say this one sort of rides the fence being that a) it contains not a lick of flour (not that flour is a requirement for cookie classification) and b) enclosed within its thin, almond-encrusted sheath, is a dense, slightly sticky mass of sweet, sugary marzipan – behaving more like candy than cookie, imo. Its ingredients are: sugar, almonds, almond paste, egg whites and salt. Read more »
