Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Where It's at on Monday Nights: L&B Spumoni Gardens

Biked out to Bensonhurst last night with my buddy Anna to check out L&B Spumoni Gardens. It was packed with families, teenagers on dates, and more than one youth baseball team. It was a pretty wild scene. L&B is famous for its Sicilian square slices, which they make with a sweet sauce that they put on top of the cheese. I subscribe to the thin crust pizza temple, but this pizza really wowed me. Anna's comment - "I'm coming back for this every week."

The spumoni, which has an even better reputation than the pizza, I found disappointing. It comes in chocolate, vanilla, and pistastio. I got chocolate & vanilla and spent the whole time thinking I must have picked up someone else's by accident because I couldn't even tell what flavor it was. Vanilla, that happens, but chocolate? Next time I'm trying the ice cream.

Afterwards we still had a little room, and we needed to stay awake for the 10 miles back, so we stopped around the corner on Avenue U at an Italian cafe we'd passed earlier (Extra Bar Caffe No. 2, 125 Ave. U). The espresso tasted like Italy - the only things that told me we were in the States were the pictures of the Sopranos and Sylvester Stallone behind the counter. Excellent.

My total: 2 slices (one edge, one middle), 1 spumoni, 1 espresso, $7 (seriously), 20 miles.

Photos by Youngna (top), Slice (bottom)

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