Rocco's

When we walked into this West Village pastry shop the first time, we had no idea of the history. To us it was just Rocco's, a convenient place to order dessert after eating a pizza at John's down the street. In fact, it was Rocco's Pastry Shop & Espresso Cafe. It was a neighborhood bakery with classic Italian pastries that could have easily given Ferrara's a run for its money. Some of the recipes are over 100 years old.   

Whether you come in for coffee and dessert or just a quick treat to go, the selection of cookies, cakes, cheesecakes, pastries and Italian specialty items will feed your fancy while you wait in line. Rum Baba and Cannoli are only two of the old world recipes that are prepared daily. Every neighborhood should be lucky enough to have a bakery like this and a family dedicated to keeping it producing such recipes.

  

It was so difficult to choose between cakes with butter cream or dairy whipped cream frostings. But select we did and we ended up with plenty of whipped cream in the form of a raspberry cream pie, liberally laced with chocolate. One can't go to New York without trying the cheese cakes, so the second selection was a very light, cheese cake with fresh fruit on top. We were happy to see that they also would serve us a steamed milk, and in this case, it was mixed with an almond syrup. Magnolia Bakery was up the street. Strolling along, it was easy to take a look at their nationally famous cupcakes, but when it came time for dessert we headed straight to Rocco's.

Pasticceria Rocco Website

243 Bleeker St New York NY (212) 242-6031

Risottoria

I've peered into the window of this small, West Village restaurant on my last 3 trips to NYC. This time I finally crossed the threshold into the small dining room and risotto bar. Small may be an understatement for this risotto, pizza and paninni emporium. The tables are no more than 1" apart and have to be moved completely to allow a diner to be seated at the banquette that lines the main wall.

If truth be told, I resisted since the recipes as listed on the menu looked very non traditional. What a breath of fresh air. The sweetcorn and porcini risotto with truffle oil was delicious and I am now encouraged to start experimenting on risotti at home. The truffle oil was a bit heavy handed, but my dinner companion had no complaint when it was scooped from my plate and drizzled over his porcini risotto.

Both risotti were competently executed with a generous amount of porcini in each dish. The roasted beet salad with walnuts and truffle oil was less stellar. The combination of the earthy beet and earthier truffle oil sounded appealing, but in reality, it was overkill.

The restaurant is located on Bleeker Street just a block south of John's Pizzaria.