»Chocolate Chip Cookie

Zooies Cookies
9815 National Blvd., Cheviot Hills

Located within a United Oil convenience store just off the 10 freeway, Zooies Cookies serves a brown-butter, chocolate chip specimen that takes the cake. It achieves an ideal balance of crispy outside, chewy inside, and a nutty, complex flavor, thanks to butter that bakery owner Arezou Appel carefully browns. Then there’s the chocolate: a mix engineered for maximum pleasure of Ghirardelli semisweet chips and irregular chunks from a Callebaut dark bar. “If the chocolate is one-note,” says Appel, whose husband owns the station, “it isn’t as fun as if you have a little up and down.” Indeed.

»Pupusas

La Caravana Salvadorian Restaurant
1306 N. Lake Ave, Pasadena

El Salvador’s stuffed cornmeal disks are a simple comfort food that’s easy to get wrong, but for 25 years La Caravana Salvadorian Restaurant has been getting it just right. The ratio of hand-formed masa patty to flavorful stuffing is in perfect balance, with just a bit of queso Oaxaca spilling out and browning on the griddle to form a crispy-edged halo. Order the platter of mini versions ($14.95), and you’ll receive 10 palm-size rounds with your choice of fillings.