I had a VERY nice, no-occasion dinner date on Friday. My very handsome (and very sweet!) date took me to a surprise dinner location: Yamashiro!! Above and behind the Magic Castle, this fancy restaurant provides CalAsian cuisine with a fantastic view of Hollywood.

So my dinner was great (black cod with wasabi mashed potatoes, yummers!!!), but let’s cut straight to dessert. I looked at the dessert menu and knew exactly what I wanted:

Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich
Warm peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies, dulce de leche ice cream, caramel & chocolate sauces, candied walnuts

It took not too long to come out and this is what we were greeted with:

Yamashiro peanut butter chocolate chip cookie sandwich

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that plate is the size of a normal dinner plate. The cookies were huge and thick, and tasted good. Not great, not the best cookies I’ve ever had, but complemented with the ice cream and caramel and chocolate sauces, the dessert (look at the size of this thing, shall I say “meal”??) was GREAT! The cookies themselves were not too sweet which was a good decision because the ice cream and sauces were bursting with sweetness. As mentioned above, the cookies were a mash-up of two of my favorite cookies: peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies! It is a DELICIOUS combination and the next time I make peanut butter cookies I must remember to turn them into peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. The cookies were very thick and not soft; they probably would have held the ice cream together if I picked it up (but I didn’t, since this was a fancy fork-and-spoon type of restaurant). Not crumbly or much too crunchy either. In between, good texture and stiffness for a sandwich. I loved dipping the cookies into the ice cream; they were strong enough to hold almost-frozen ice cream but the ice cream softened up the cookies to just the right amount. These cookies didn’t taste fresh; I highly doubt that these came from the restaurant’s oven. It would have tasted better if the cookies were warm. And it wasn’t peanut buttery enough. Overall, I’d get this dessert again, not for the cookies alone, but for the entire sandwich. Below I will judge the dessert in its entirety since that is the way it is presented.

Wait, the menu says the cookies are served warm. It wasn’t warm enough for me, it felt room temperature…

• Taste: 8
• Crust and center moistness: cookies were in between crunchy and soft
• Value: $9.99, 1/3 of what an entree could cost, portion was huge, good deal
• Overall: I would eat it again if I felt like indulging The only thing that would stop me is all the massive calories it has. 9!