CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Tina Apana, manager at Paradise Cafe, gathers up some fresh-baked cookies.
By Jackie M. Young
Special to the Star-Bulletin Paradise Cafe's chocolate-chip cookie -- No. 1 in Marty and Mark Alsop's cookie rankings -- is the result of owner Sharooz Noubari's recipe refinements. MAKE IT YOURSELFMark Alsop ranks his mother's cookies a perfect 10. Chocolate-Chip CookiesNancy Alsop 1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2-1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 12-ounce bag semi-sweet chocolate chips Prehead oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking soda. Gradually beat into butter/sugar mixture. Add chocolate chips and stir in. Spoon and drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 9 minutes. Nutritional information unavailable.
The shop started out as a franchise in 1989, but "my mom would always try to change the recipes a little to make them taste better," said Noubari's son, Nima Noubari. "After we took over the chain completely about 10 years ago, we've taken all the additives and preservatives and most of the salt out of the original cookie recipes, and we always bake our cookies fresh every day." Sharooz confirms that chocolate chip is the shop's most popular cookie. "Young kids will prefer one of our large, cake-sized chocolate-chip cookies over the usual birthday cake." Sharooz and her husband, Tom, immigrated to the San Francisco area from Iran in 1976. In 1984, they bought an Italian bakery franchise called Il Fornio. This led to the purchase of the Paradise Cafe franchise, which expanded to Hawaii in '92. The family has settled here and now owns Paradise Cafe outlets downtown and at Ala Moana Center (as well as Spada, an Italian restaurant downtown). Next month they'll open a new location at the Royal Hawaiian Center in Waikiki. The cafe also sells fresh-baked breads, cinnamon rolls, croissants, sandwiches, salads and soups. "I think people like our cookies because of the freshness of our ingredients, our use of the best-quality chocolate, and our home-cooking methods," Sharooz said. The number of chocolate-chip cookies sold varies by day. "We'll bake until the display case is full -- about three dozen," Sharooz said. "If that's gone by midday, we'll bake some more. Of course, that amount sells out in no time around Christmas." Cookie taste-offThis list isn't meant to be exhaustive, but represents Mark and Marty Alsop's best efforts to taste as many fresh-baked and locally made packaged chocolate-chip cookies as they could find over the course of about six months. When a cookie is noted as having a "strange aftertaste," Mark explains: "It can mean a dull taste, but it can also mean that it tastes like there are too many preservatives, and that that taste lingers in your mouth as something bitter, despite the sweetness of the chocolate." | STORE | LOCATION | PRICE | POSITIVE | NEGATIVE | RANK | | Paradise Cafe | 841 Bishop St. | $1.50 | Good taste, soft, good chocolate, good consistency, good balance of vanilla and brown sugar. | A little crumbly | 9.0 | | TCBY/Mrs. Fields | 1613 Nuuanu Ave. | $1.77 | Good taste, thick, soft, doesn't break apart easily, chocolate melts in mouth | A little greasy | 8.75 | | Cookies By Design | 1112 Pensacola St. | $1.20 | Good chocolate, freshly made, soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, good consistency and texture, moist | A little greasy, sunken-in | 8.5 | | Great Harvest Bread Co. (Oatmeal-chocolate chip) | 233 Merchant St. | $1.25 | Good flavor, plenty of substance, big, soft with a little crunch | None | 8 | | Costco Hawaii Kai | 333-A Keahole St. | $6.99 for 24 | Big, good initial taste, good chocolate | Gritty, strange aftertaste | 7.5 | | Cookie Corner | 700 Bishop St. | About $1.10, by weight | Thick, plump, soft, good chocolate | Lacks taste (needs more vanilla), strange aftertaste, gritty, a little dry, taste "incomplete" | 7.0 | | Subway | 700 Bishop St. | 59 cents | Good taste, good chocolate, soft in the middle | Too hard on the outside | 7.5 | | Safeway Hawaii Kai | 377 Keahole St. | 85 cents | Good size, chewy | Could use more chocolate, chocolate doesn't melt in your mouth | 7 | | Sam's Club | 750 Keeaumoku St. | $7.04 for 42 mini-cookies | Soft, good chocolate, small size so you feel like you could eat more | Not a lot of flavor, "spongy" | 6.5 | | Hokulani Bake Shop | Restaurant Row | $3.25 for 10 mini-cookies | All-natural, good chocolate, good flavor | Overcooked, crumbly, dry | 5.5 | | Leonard's Bakery | 933 Kapahulu Ave. | $3.25 for six | Not bad flavor, good chocolate | Hard to open the packaging, crumbly, dry, light flavor | 5.5 | | Diamond Head Market & Grill | 3575 Campbell Ave. | $2.25 for three | Good chocolate flavor | Very crumbly (falls apart too easily), too salty, grainy | 4 | | Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Hawaii Kai | 7192 Kalanianaole Highway. | $2.49 | No preservatives | Outside too crumbly, gritty texture, lacks in flavor | 4 | | Sweet Nothings | 1218 Waimanu St. | $5.25 for 10 | Sugar free and not a bad taste | Hard, bland | 4 | | Foodland Hawaii Kai (Tutu's brand) | 7192 Kalanianaole Hwy. | $7.99 for 14 | None | Crumbly, lacking in flavor | 4 | | Mary Catherine's Bakery | 2820 S. King St. | 50 cents | None | Hard, crumbly, lacking in chocolate flavor, plain taste | 3 | | Saint Germain Bakery | 737 Bishop St. | $4.50 for package of 12 to 14 | None | Small, lacking in flavor, crunchy, crumbly, messy, chips are small | 2 | | Sconees Bakery | 1117 12th Ave. | 95 cents | None | Overly sweet, needs more salt, crumbly, too much butter | 2 |
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