Stopped by Arthur Avenue for some Italian goodies after a game of golf at a public course in the Bronx.  After buying some fresh pasta at Borgatti's (where you can choose how thin you'd like it cut (angel hair or fettucini size, for example) and parmesan and mozzarella at Casa della Mozzarella... of course we needed a snack and made a quick stop in at Delillo Pastry Shop where I had a mini chocolate covered cannoli.  The cannoli was nice and fresh and the filling was the traditional ricotta, YUM!!

Delillo Pastry Shop. 606 East 187th Street, Bronx, NY.  

We went to Vezzo for dinner tonight, one of my favorite pizza places. I had a personal pizza with a nine-grain organic crust and homemade hot italian sausage. Delicious as usual, the crust is always so thin and crispy.  All of their desserts are made in house so I decided to try the chocolate chip cookie.
At $2.50 it was a good value but its not the type of cookie thats good on its own, we should have ordered it a la mode. They used 2 different varieties of chips which added flavor, but the texture was a bit too cakey for my taste.

Vezzo Thin Crust Pizza Lexington @ E 31st Street

Just read about the Best Chocolate Cake in the World.. which you can get in NYC starting this month. Apparantly the newest chocolate cake to hit the NY scene.  If you are in the Nolita area, let me know how it is!

The Best Chocolate Cake in the World is $6.50 a slice,  55a Spring Street (Lafayette Street), (212) 343-2253

I finally had a chance to try Van Leeuwen Ice Cream yesterday at their stop near Madison Square Park.  Such a perfect hot day for an excellent scoop (or two) of ice cream.  I asked for a small, with both chocolate and vanilla and got 2 scoops!  Not sure why we can't get 1 regular sized scoop of ice cream in this country any more!!

I assumed the chocolate would be darker since they say they use 99% Michel Cluizel chocolate, so was a little disappointed here.  It definitely tasted chocolatey but not as much as I'd like.  The vanilla however, was super tasty, such an intense vanilla flavor, loved it! They use whole vanilla beans - from organic bourbon and Tahitian vanilla orchid sourced from Papua New Guinea. They claim that other ice-cream makers simply put vanilla bean specks (which are devoid of flavor) in their ice cream to make it look authentic, but they do it right.