LA Cookie Challenge: Joan's on Third vs. Proof Bakery

We've been meaning to get back to Griffith park ever since our last visit. Grabbing cookies in the area was a perfect excuse to take the pups on a picnic. We grabbed sandwiches and one of the chocolate chip cookie contenders from Joan's on Third, and then fought traffic to pick up a second cookie from Proof Bakery. The cookie-off took place in the park, on a blanket with two crazy puppies and "wonderful" music from the near by merry-go-round.

Small off topic shout out to Joan's sandwiches. They killed! We'll have to see if their cookie did as well.

After cookies, we took a short hike with the puppies up to the old Los Angeles Zoo location. Although the zoo has moved a few miles, the old location still features lion and bear habitats, which you can walk through! It was almost surreal, feeling like we were in 28 Days Later, exploring the abandoned zoo after a giant zombie apocalypse across LA. Sounds like the basis for an awesome movie...

Joan's on Third

First up was Joan's, a big, thick, soft-in-the-middle-but-crunchy-on-the-outside cookie. The chocolate used was a good dark chocolate that was well balanced with small sprinklings of chocolate throughout, but no huge chocolate bites. Neither of us has had any real complaints with Joan's, but at the same time, neither one of us felt that Joan's was super memorable...

Proof Bakery

Thanks to traffic, Proof was a real pain in the butt to get to. And then the line was out the door. But in the end, we were happy with our purchases (we bought croissants and warmed them for breakfast the next morning, in addition to cookies). The cookies at Proof were on the smaller and thinner side. They were crispy on the edges, but not overly crispy. Proof had nice swirls of rich dark chocolate through the whole cookie, and even better, a nice sprinkling of sea salt (although both of us agreed it could have used more), Despite the looks (it looked very much like the overly chocolatey Tavern cookie), it had a good chocolate-to-cookie ratio.

The Verdict

Surprisingly both cookies had a similar flavor profile, however Proof's was slightly richer and deeper in flavor. So even though Joan's had a better texture in Erin's opinion, Proof won out for flavor, not only for depth of flavor, but for their addition of sea salt, which we've decided is basically a necessity when it comes to dessert. Winner for both of us = Proof.