Believe it or not, this cookie is amazing.

Whenever I find myself at the aforementioned Tazza I can’t help but pick up a certain, aptly-named “Monster” of a cookie despite the array of beautiful and dainty sweets at my disposal. Delicate lemon tart? Famed Robicelli’s cupcake? Elegant and tender puff pastry wheel? No thanks! I’ll take the monster.

Stacked high in one of those glass jars on the counter, this is definitely not the eye-catchers of Tazza’s pretty bunch. However the flavors, a trifecta of oats, peanut butter and chocolate, truly are. The base is equally balanced in taste and texture between the oats and peanut butter, which provide the perfect heft for the cookie’s true gems: 20 or 30 chocolate chips and M&Ms scattered throughout. You can’t tell from the picture but I guarantee every bite will contain at least one piece of chocolate (and very often more). This cookie is more akin to a power bar, or several– it definitely pays to split this between two separate meals (or, if you are a sharer, two separate people). One half of this baby got me through the second part of my LSAT exam and yet, I still associate it with pleasantry! if that’s not testament enough to the powers of this monster, I don’t know what is.