Area 4 Cafe

A medium-sized chocolate chip cookie on a plate with very small chocolate chips A cross-section of a cookie. It is incredibly thick and has an even distrubution of tiny chips.

Area 4’s Brown butter Bourbon Chocolate chip cookie is a mouthful. And it’s tasty.

Area 4 by the Kendall T is primarily a pizza joint, but they also have a cafe to supply MIT grad students with copious amounts of caffeine, breakfast sandwiches, and pastries. The Bourbon Chocolate Chip cookie has a monumental amount of tiny chocolate chips. This makes for an even distribution of chocolate throughout the cookie and in every bite. And, since the cookie is thick, each bite contains a solid chunk of cookie with a variety of textures: chewy middle, crispy top, and caramelized bottom. The dough has a complexity and depth that’s often lacking in a standard chocolate chip cookie, making this one of my favorite cookies in the area.

I always say that I love exploring chocolate chip cookies because each one is unique. No matter how different it may be from your iconic ideal of a cookie, it will probably still by tasty. This is why I refuse to develop a matrix for judging chocolate chip cookies - they're all good, it just depends on what qualities your looking for. I feel this philosophy in my bones when I eat this cookie. It's probably one of the most visually distinctive chocolate chip cookies here, and I didn't think I would like teeny chocolate chips. Yet, those tiny chocolate chips actually don't make it any better or worse than a cookie with large chunks of chocolate in it. Those tiny chips make it a whole different experience, and one that is definitely worth having.