Finished!

By the end of Cookie Quest, those who'd been with us the whole day had eaten 15 different chocolate chip cookies and walked over 8 miles! We also exercised our critical faculties by rating and writing about each cookie we tasted. Our final overall cookie order:

1. City Bakery
2. Levain Bakery
3. Roasting Plant
4. Blue Ribbon Bakery
5. Ruby et Violette
6. Alice's Tea cup
7. Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven
8. Milk & Cookies
9. Bouchon Bakery
10. Insomnia Cookies
11. Max Brenner
12. Momofuku
13. Good N Plenty
14. LifeThyme
15. Dessert Club Chikalicious

Best Texture: 1. Levain; 2. City Bakery; 3. Roasting Plant
Best Chocolate Quality: 1. Alice's Tea Cup; 2. Jacques Torres; 3. City Bakery
Best Cookie Composition: 1. City Bakery; 2. Levain; 3. Roasting Plant

CQ Stop #15: Levain Bakery

Levain Bakery
Price: $4.00
Texture: 4.71 out of 5
Chocolate Quality: 3.5 out of 5
Cookie Composition: 4.44 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4.4 out of 5
2nd Best Cookie
Best Texture, 2nd Best Cookie Composition

Assorted Comments: "My perfect cookie! Crunchy outside, gooey / melty inside, thick, YUM. Good chocolate to cookie ratio" -Anneka Fagundes "Perfectly melty inside, crisp outside, almost doughy" -Ilya Kushnirsky "Nuts. :(" -Jason Eppink "A delicious mound" -Emily Young "Delicious, would be better with no nuts and better chocolate" -Naomi Huth "Huge, gooey, decadent. I just want a different chocolate" -Clay Ewing

Serious Eats #3: Levain Bakery, 167 West 74th Street
"This is incredible." "Melts in your mouth." "So moist! And so tasty." "I could eat this forever. But then I would die." Sure, it was a massive barely baked lump of dough. But such a good barely baked lump of dough. When we tallied up the scores, Levain came out on top. That said, there were a few hard-core anti-Levainites. "That's not a chocolate chip cookie! Homie don't play that." "This would be great, in a blondie taste-test." "Was this actually baked? I'm a little salmonella-nervous."

CQ Stop #14: Alice's Tea Cup

Alice's Tea Cup
Price: $3.00
Texture: 3 out of 5
Chocolate Quality: 4.79 out of 5
Cookie Composition: 3.79 out of 5
Overall Rating: 3.76 out of 5
6th Best Cookie
Best Chocolate Quality

Assorted Comments: "Fantastic chocolate layering" -Naomi Huth "Gave us two cookies for free. Harder, great chocolate" -Ilya Kushnirsky "Crunchy, good chocolate, thick, dry" -Emily Young "Salty. Chocolate is great" -Jason Eppink

Serious Eats #11: Alice's Tea Cup, 102 West 73rd Street
Nice and thick, doughy but adequately baked, the cookies from Alice's Tea Cup took second place this week. Ed called them "a better version of Levain"—though we're sure the Levain loyalists would cry foul. Our tasters called them "pleasantly toffee-flavored, with bittersweet, tasty chocolate" and "thick but delicious, with a perfect crunch." More than one decreed them "the best of the bunch."

CQ Stop #13: Bouchon Bakery

Bouchon Bakery
Price: $2.50
Texture: 3.76 out of 5
Chocolate Quality: 3.81 out of 5
Cookie Composition: 3.75 out of 5
Overall Rating: 3.56 out 5
9th Best Cookie

Assorted Comments: "Like Jacques Torres cookie -- layered chocolate. Sort of crispy on edges, softer in middle. Tastes ok." -Emily Young "Great crunchy outside to chewy inside ratio, chocolate throughout, so no cookie bites without chocolate -- very rich. A little dry on the outside." -Anneka Fagundes "Maybe a little too much chocolate, but great consistency, nice and thick center, better than the edge" -Jason Eppink "Grainy on the outside, deliciously melty / chewy inside" -Ilya Kushnirsky

Serious Eats #2: Bouchon Bakery, Time Warner Center, 10 Columbus Circle
We've come to expect perfection from Bouchon Bakery, and its chocolate chip cookie was pretty darn close. "Perfectly baked, with three layers: crunchy border, softer middle, still softer core." "Just a little bit salty, just a little bit sweet." "Beautiful to look at. Better to eat." But some found it a bit dry. As one taster put it, "This just isn't a holy grail cookie."

CQ Stop #12: Ruby et Violette

 Ruby et Violette
Price: $2.00
Texture: 3.63 out of 5
Chocolate Quality: 4.25 out of 5
Cookie Composition: 4 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4.04 out of 5
5th Best Cookie

Assorted Comments: "Small, tasty, yet not too much cookie for your buck." -Jess Lim "Excellent example of the 'tollhouse' style" -Josh S. "Chewy and rich, no crunchiness" -Anneka Fagundes "Too small but absolutely delicious. Cute place and so many (too many) flavors. Soft and moist with succulent chips" -Naomi Huth

Serious Eats (not in top eleven): Ruby et Violette, 457 West 50th Street
The "Perfect Cookie" from Ruby et Violette isn't exactly modest. But small and chewy, with delicately crisped edges and a bold dose of chocolate, it almost lived up to its name. "This is a totally classic cookie." "I like how the cookie isn't too overwhelmingly sweet. It lets the chocolate shine." "This is a buttery cookie. I like buttery cookies." The complaint? Not enough crisp in the crust to balance out the softness. It was the texture of a Mrs. Fields cookie—even if it tasted 20 times better.

Seamen on the Horizon

Fleet Week in NYC...

CQ Stop #11: Good N Plenty

Good N Plenty
Price: $1.95
Texture: 2.75 out of 5
Chocolate Quality: 2.84 out of 5
Cookie Composition: 3.13 out of 5
Overall Rating: 2.89 out of 5
13th Best Cookie

Assorted Comments: "More dry, crunchy, thick, granular. Not too exciting" -Emily Young "Crunchiest of the day" -Josh S. "Grainy but buttery" -Ilya Kushnirsky "Standard fare, processed, good composition though" -Clay Ewing "Dry, standard, average" -Jason Eppink

Good N Plenty, 410 West 43rd Street
Not included in Serious Eats.