When you visit a new place, you hear about some spots you should definitely go before your trip is over from everyone. Hot Cookie is one of those places that people tell you go in SF. It is in Castro district, and it is a small counter-serve bakery, offering homemade cookies. Inside is very vibrant and colorful with lots of red, including red underpants that they sell (No I didn’t buy one). They have good selection of cookies, and other sweets like brownies and rice crispy treats. They do get a line on most days, and they do sell out on popular items, so if you are wanting something specific, you might not want to wait until the evening time to get there.
So, why are they so famous and popular? Because of the unique cookies that they sell… Especially, the ones called “Penis” and “Venus” cookies. Why are they called that? Because of the shapes of the cookies. They are shaped like…well, take a look. They are macaroon filled, so they are not just regular cookies. We bought the penis cookie (since they are both the same kinds, just different shape, we didn’t need to buy both). It was large (anything I say about this one is gonna sound dirty…LOL), and filled with lots of shredded coconuts. It was moist and sweet, had some weight on it, and chewy. It was not as amazing as I thought it would be, then again, I am not a huge coconut fan either. It was still pretty good, very different, and I am glad I got to try it. I have to say, I feel like they make the penis cookie more realistic than expected, more than the venus one. Maybe that is because the store is located in a center of gay neighborhood? In case you are not familiar with SF, Castro is a renowned gay district, so you might see interesting thing outside the store as well. It really was a fun place to visit.
We also tried their Snicker Doodle cookie. Their cookies are all rather large, and have many tasty looking cookies. It was not easy to choose which one to buy. This one was really nice, moist, sweet, good quality. If you are a coconut lover, you might enjoy the penis (or venus) cookie more, but for me, I liked this one better. It was not super amazing, but still was good, solid cookie.
As for the price, they price the cookies by the weight, so each cookie come out a slightly different, even if you are buying 2 of the same thing. Yes, interesting method. They seem to come out around $3 per cookie. The penis cookie on the other hand, since it is heavy with macaroon filling and covered in chocolate, it came out to be around $7.50. I say it is overpriced for 1 macaroon cookie, but we are paying for the most popular and famous novelty item of this store. And for as long as there are more people willing to pay for the price, they will not come down on the price.
On another note, they also offer “yesterday’s cookies” for $0.95 each!!! We didn’t get them, but we would have if we knew how pricey the 2 cookies would be…(the total for 2 cookies came out to be $10.38). Those yesterday’s cookies looked pretty good, and I am sure they still taste pretty good. If you think about it, when you bake a fresh batch of cookies, not everyone eats every single cookie on that day, right? So, if you get those cookies for super cheap price, and then get penis or venus, then you can maybe justify the total amount spent here? Either way, it is a fun, interesting place to visit, so go get you a cookie or two (or more) from Hot Cookie when you are in SF!
Hot Cookie – 407 Castro St, San Francisco, CA 94114