A good chocolate chip cookie is hard to find

Not so much in New York as in Paris.

This, I was reminded after annihilating a chocolate chip cookie from Birdbath last week. The stacks of deliciousness beckoned to me from the sidewalk, and I, dutifully, went inside for one.


There is something about the gritty-sweet combination of the butter and sugar. The simultaneous texture of crisp and chewy. The studs of dark chocolate. Birdbath’s cookies make my heart sing.

For a year and a half, I’ve been trying to find a replacement fix in Paris. So far, no luck. Eric Kayser is as close as I’ve come.

I know, I know—it looks quite delicious, right?

All those melty pieces of chocolate and the golden, crackling surface?

Looks are deceiving. Or maybe it’s just that I know better. While Paris is gunning to take the torch from New York for cupcake mania, no one has is onto chocolate chip cookies. Yet.

I'll swallow that

“I’m a soy bean-eating, recycling-devoted, vintage clothes-wearing, used Volvo-driving, low-carbon-footprint person in the first place. Sometime during the Bush years, that administration’s intense assault on the environment left me feeling that as a business owner with a large and loyal customer base, I had a responsibility to begin talking about the environment.”

Go, Maury! Here’s to the New York-based, French-trained, bi-coastal pastry chef who’s now sharing his good morals and gut-busting cookies at a third location.

Sesame sweetness

My friend Ben is no liar.

He told me one of the best things he’s eaten lately is the sesame banana cake from Birdbath. While he was not charmed by the price ($4 for a takeaway muffin?), he raved about the heft (about the diameter and weight of three stacked hockey pucks) and yumminess (not his word).

And rightfully so. Birdbath is proving that vegan baked goods can be delicious. And that ingredients usually reserved for savory dishes are just as at home in sweets.

The sesame seeds in the cake (it’s called a cake but shaped like a muffin) give it a nice smoky flavor and textured mouthfuls. And yet there’s sweetness from agave. And while some vegan baked goods suffer from funky consistencies — they’re either so moist, they’re wet (eww), or so crumbly that they fall apart before reaching your mouth — this one gets it right. It holds together just as if loads of butter were binding the ingredients.

Even better than the sesame-rich insides are the big hunks of bananas that give it a carmelized chewiness. They’re so good that, in a weird way, it’s almost like eating chocolate.

Thanks, Bennie.

Take Two

Birdbath Bakery spreads wings, heads westward.

Is it Build a Green Bakery? Or Birdbath Bakery? Or is this naming business trickery to ratchet up buzz? Does it matter? No, so long as the cookies and scones and muffins and croissants remain so tasty (and the ingredients, organic).

The City Bakery's second Birdbath offshoot is open in the West Village. Which means candied ginger scones, raspberry bran muffins, pretzel croissants, and chocolate chip cookies, served in eco environs, can be found twice as easily.

Pedal your bike over and get on the green bandwagon. It's more delicious than you ever imagined.

Birdbath
145 Seventh Ave South at Charles Street
646.722.6565