Amazing Cookies in Mito

Last week, I talked about my wife's birthday celebration at the Greek wine place called Wine O'Clock (again, that is the real name). My wife and I went around Mito and visited a few other places. One of them being Mito Brewing which makes excellent strawberry beer by the way. After a few drinks and some tasty desserts, we stayed the night in Mito and woke up craving coffee and something sweet. We did get our coffee (which I will talk about in another post), but we weren't sure where to get our sweet treat. I then remembered that during the Aozora Craft market, that happens twice a year at the Mito Art Tower, I bought a cookie from one of the stalls and absolutely loved it. I double checked Instagram and found the cookie place. The great news was that it was near by. We hoped in our car and headed Tortoise Cookies.

Tortoise Cookies

Tortoise cookies is a small cookie shop that is located in the Tennocho area of Mito City. It is pretty close to Senba Lake. If you plan to visit this delicious cookie place, please note that it is quite a hike from Mito Station. A 30 minute hike to be exact. I recommend either coming by car or bike. If you come by car, there is a huge parking area for Senba Lake near Tortoise Cookies. It is at the bottom of a hill so be prepared to climb some stairs to get some cookies. Maybe a nice day with some cookies by the lake might be in your future.
Mrs. Ibaraki Eats and I did just that. After climbing up the stairs, which felt like an eternity, we found ourselves in front of Tortoise Cookies ready to take some cookies with us.

Inside and the Menu

When you walk inside Tortoise Cookies, you are greeted by a small table filled with cookies. This is a take out only place. So there are no chairs or tables to have your cookies at. Tortoise Cookies does have a few other tables around the room with a few other interesting hand crafted items that are fun to look at.
When it comes to the menu, what you see is what you get. The great news is that all the cookies are labeled in Japanese and English. You can buy your cookies seperately, or you can buy a furoshiki cookie box set which brings 5, 6, 8, or 10 different flavored cookies.
We decided that we just wanted two cookies with our morning coffee. So we picked two that looked like they would blow our minds.

Chocolate Chunk

If you are a fan of having large chocolate chips in your cookie, than this is the cookie for you. This was Mrs. Ibaraki Eats' choice and this cookie looked great. I was a little hesistant at first when my wife asked me to take the first bite. I have been deceived by Japanese cookies before. A lot of them should be called short bread cookies, instead of cookies because when you bite into them, your jaw gets a workout from all the puffed up flour in the cookie. Fortunately, this cookie was different.
When I bit into this cookie, the first thing to hit my taste buds was the strong taste of milk chocolate. After that, came the delicious taste of cookie dough that was baked just right. This cookie was incredible. It went very well with my morning coffee, even though I suspect that the cookie would go even better with just milk. I plan to get this cookie again and dunk it in some milk to see how that would change the taste. My wife loved this cookie. She especially loved how chocolatey it was and wished she could have bought another one.

Rocky Road

I loved the chocolate chunk, but the rocky road was on a whole other level of deliciousness. If I have convinced you to visit Tortoise Cookies, please get the rocky road cookie. Rocky Road is a combination of chocolate, marshmallows, and nuts. In the States, we usually have it as an ice cream flavor. Tortoise Cookies decided to make a cookie out of this delicious flavor. I can tell you with the utmost confidence that they got it right. This cookie is phenomenal. I took one bite of this cookie and immediately regretted not buying five more of this fantastic rocky road cookie. The melted gooey marshmallow with the big chocolate chips in the gooey center made my day. This cookie is by far the best cookie I have ever had in the central Ibaraki area. Mrs. Ibaraki Eats liked this cookie too. She was a bigger fan of the chocolate chunk, but she gave this cookie her official thumbs up. My other regret is not being able to heat up the cookie. We were in our car driving back to Tsuchiura when we had this cookie, and I wonder how the cookie would taste if I heated it up a little bit in my microwave. Even while writing this post, the thought of heating up that fantastic cookie still crosses my mind. I will have to go back to Tortoise Cookies and buy some more to run my tasty experiment.

Our experience at Tortoise Cookies was an interesting and delicious one. I really enjoyed their cookies. I hope my wife and I can go back and buy some more of their delicious cookies soon.

So if you are around Mito and have a craving for some amazing cookies, why not give Tortoise Cookies a chance? Who knows? You might see us there. Trying some other flavors of cookies and buying up all the rocky road cookies they have.
Enjoy!

For more information on Tortoise Cookies, check out their website:
https://www.tortoisecookies.com/