Arthur Ave. Adventure Again

So, it’s Derek making a blog post, which of course means tons of pictures of food.  I know right now all anyone wants to see is pictures of Madeline, but don’t worry, there might be some of those at the end.  Anyway, we made yet another trip to Arthur Ave. (the Little Italy of the Bronx) to get out of the house for a bit and find some delicious food.  Turned out to be a great trip with awesome weather and little Madeline slept the whole trip, which I think in the baby world means she loved it.

I also have a new obsession of reviewing restaurants that we’ve been to on Yelp.com  …I even added a little gadget thing on the right hand side of the blog that will show you places I have reviewed recently and you can click on it to go see my reviews. 

So, we started off by grabbing a slice of pizza for lunch at Full Moon Pizzeria.  I was told that the thing to get here was the Spinach and Artichoke Pizza.  Unfortunately, they no longer make that, so I settled for the plain spinach pizza.  It was still pretty good, but I imagine the artichoke makes it much better.  Lindsay had a plain slice of cheese pizza (not pictured) and really enjoyed it.  She doesn’t like the super thin, crunch New York City style pizza and this was more of a thick, doughy crust.

Next we stopped by Madonia Bakery for a few items, one of which being our favorite cannoli in all of NYC, actually, make that anywhere.  Seriously, it’s a good cannoli.  They fill them fresh to order in a super crunchy, awesome shell, and Lindsay claims that she would eat the filling with just a spoon.  It is pretty good, perfect amount of cinnamon and even though you can’t see it in the picture, tons of little chocolate chips.

I also wanted to get some Biscotti while I was here, they have huge cases of it and I’ve heard it is pretty good.  I got 2 different kinds and while this is pending a test taste with my coffee in the morning, the little bites of each that I tried were pretty good.  Not too hard, not too sweet, just the perfect texture.

At the same bakery we got a loaf of Italian bread to go with our meats and cheeses.  I wasn’t going to get it sliced there, but Lindsay said it would be less of a mess than me doing it at home, and also they had a really cool machine that cut the bread up.  I wish I had taken a picture of it.  Anyway, the bread was really good, but honestly not quite the style I like.  I prefer a really crispy crust and super soft inside, while this one had only a slightly crispy crust that was almost chewy.  Good bread, but I’d prefer a nice, fresh baguette. So this isn’t the order of the stores we went to, but I’m going to talk about the other bakery, De Lillo’s, that we went to next. It actually wasn’t on our agenda, but I thought we needed a few more sweets and I heard they had good rainbow cookies.  As always when visiting a new pastry shop, Lindsay wanted to try her favorite, the eclair, and our favorite, the cannoli.  Lindsay liked the eclair, “better than any [eclair] I’ve gotten around here, although the filling could have had a little more flavor, the chocolate and pastry were pretty good.”  The cannoli wasn’t quite as impressive, however to it’s credit, it had a tough act to follow(see world’s best cannoli above).  I liked the filling, but we both agreed the shell was just too thick and flavorless.

And, what we stopped here for…the Rainbow cookie.  I think we both agreed that this was the best one we’ve ever had.  Not that I’ve had that many, I only discovered these things since moving up here.  We bought a 1/4 pound chunk of them that a) will not be enough and b) will not last past tomorrow.  They are awesome.  Super moist and flavorful, I might go eat more right now.

  Another stop was Calandra’s Cheese Shop.  I’ve been in this store before and was never too impressed, it’s really small and doesn’t seem to have a large selection.  This time though I was told to go and get the Pecorino coated in Red Pepper.  I’m not sure of the reasoning for the red pepper coating, but it’s kind of addicting if you like cheese and spicy stuff (which I do).  Lindsay didn’t like the cheese itself and didn’t bother to try the spicy crust.  I’m a big fan though. 

One thing that both Linday and I do agree on when it comes to cheese is Parmesan.  We prefer to have a chunk of fresh parmigiano-reggiano cheese in our fridge to grate on pasta and stuff rather than the green can of dust.  Teitel Brother’s Grocery was suppose to have some great cheese at a great price (I think it was roughtly $10/lb.).  Not only did it live up to the hype, by that I mean you can eat this stuff by itself which is rare for parmesan, but it also made for some cool pictures.

The same store also has a great Sweet Capicola, which is basically a sausage made by curing pork shoulder or neck with wine and herbs.  Lindsay didn’t like this because it was a little too fatty for her.  I agree with that to an extent, but I still really liked the flavor of it.  It could be a little less fatty though.

Our next stop was the Calabria Pork Store.  I love this place.  Sausage hanging from the ceiling, sausage everywhere.  If it can be made out of a pig, they have it here.

Last time we came here I got the Sopressata which is a type of Italian salami that Lindsay and I both really enjoy.  (Nanny, it’s very similar to Saucisson, which is probably why I like it so much!) This time though we went with Pepperoni and Salami.  Bother were great, but my only complaint was that they sliced them too thin, guess I’ll have to remember to ask for thicker slices next time.  Then again, next time there about 100 different other things I want to try. 

Last but not least was Casa della Mozzarella for the best fresh Mozz you’ve ever had.  And it didn’t disappoint.  This stuff was good.  The coolest part was that the texture was way different than the “solid” fresh mozz you normally get.  This was more stringy and textural, Lindsay compared it to really good string cheese.  Anyway, it was super good and as usual, I made a Caprese salad with some of it using a tomato we had in the fridge and some of my fresh Basil which somehow survived my harvest of it a few weeks ago.

    

And of course, what everyone really wanted to see…pictures of Madeline in her first foodie trip to Arthur Ave!  This is pretty much what she did the whole time.