A couple of days ago I got an urgent message from my friend Jess. “Cookies!” her note declared. “There is a new place in Portuense called Mondo di Laura that does kosher cookies. They are sold at Roscioli but we should go to the source.” I agreed. I recently wrote of my obsession with the biscottini at the kosher bakery in the Ghetto. Now that place is absolutely amazing and I adore everything they sell, but the selection is limited and heavily almond paste and ricotta based. This is not a complaint by any means. I simply appreciate variety so when I checked out Mondo di Laura’s website and saw there were ten kinds of cookies to choose from, I was hell bent on getting my hands on them. I didn’t wait long.
The next day I went to Kosher Bistro in the Ghetto where I knew they were sold. They had a selection of five of the ten types. For the sake of research I got one of each to try. The one pictured above is called Miss Cioccolatissima, a chocolate and coffe liquor flavored gluten free cookie. This was not my favorite but the only one that was photogenic enough after being stuffed in a take away bag with lots of friable treats. The best one was Pepita, a mixture of cacao, sugar, margarine and Himalayan salt, a perfectly balanced union of savory and sweet with the texture of a nearly cooked brownie. Candy Spicy, similar to a gingersnap, was also tasty. Tragically, Kosher Bistro did not have the snail-shaped, vanilla and salt flavored Frolline I had hoped to try. This week has a singular gastronomic goal at the moment: to chase down that snail.
