Field trip to Arthur Avenue

Most people think of Little Italy as the few blocks around Mott Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. However, a short trip north into the Bronx brings you to Arthur Avenue which is home to real Little Italy on Arthur Avenue full of a much larger variety of shops and much more reasonable (non-tourist) prices. I have been thinking about going up there for a couple years now so when Mireille of Global Gourmet sent an email out that she was organizing a shopping trip up there with her meetup group I was the first to sign up.

We went up last saturday and visited a few places:
Terranova Bakery (bread)
Borgatis (fresh pasta)
Casa Della Mozzarella (house made mozzarella and other specialty products)
Full Moon Pizza (good Sicilian pizzas)
Modern Grocery Store (produce)
Teitel Brothers (specialty Italian products)
Biancardi’s (butcher)
Madonia Brothers Bakery (dessert)
Calabria Pork Store (you can probably guess)
Randazzo’s (seafood)

This tour was based off of this chowhound post with the added pit stop of Calabria Pork Store.

We started out at Terranova which had had a ridiculous prosciutto bread that was like crack. Once you had a bit you had to have another. Its a pretty small bakery thought so they can easily run out of stuff. The service was really friendly though.

We bought some of the house-made squid ink pasta & carrot pasta from Borgatis. As always, neither of them had the taste of the ingredient used to color them, but both of them had great texture and looked beautiful. They also had a selection of fresh pastas that were made in house.

Casa Della Mozzarella was insanely busy and filled up quick because they have such a small space for customers (most of the space is occupied by their products. The had guys in the back making fresh mozzarella also sold a variety of other cheeses, meats, and antipasto. I bought some of the cheese curds for $4 a pound am going to try making some it at home so I can have it *really* fresh.

We took our lunch break at Full Moon Pizza had a great Sicilian pizza that wasn’t nearly as dense and heavy as what you usually get. The crust was a bit thicker than a normal pie, but it had great texture and wasn’t overwhelming like it normally is for a Sicilian pizza.

Then we went over to Modern Grocery which was just a normal grocery store. Its cheaper than Manhattan, but I wouldn’t really bother carrying this stuff back unless you just need a couple (light weight) items.

The guys behind the counter at Teitel Brothers was a bit more customer friendly and they had much more variety than Casa Dealla Mozzarella so I would go there for all my cheese shopping except for mozzarella. They had an amazing ricotta di bufala that was richer and creamier than any ricotta I have ever had. They also had a dessert cheese that was mixed with a layer of nutella and another of dried fruit. Their olive bar was pretty well stocked as well.

Biancardi’s was a great general purpose butcher with plenty of cuts of veal, beef, pork, chicken, lamb. They also had tripe and few other pieces of meat you don’t always find. I wasn’t going to buy anything, but I saw that the filet mignon was $13 a pound and had to buy at least one medallion.

The Madonia Brothers Bakery seemed to employ more Albanians then Italians, but the products were all definitely Italian. They had a case of biscotti that was better than anything I have had stateside (take not that I don’t usually like biscotti so I am not really a connoisseur of it).

Next to Madonia was the Calabria Pork Store. The entire ceiling is covered from front to back with hanging sausages that they cure in house. In the back, they were curing a couple kinds of bacon. The entire places smelled like deliciousness and I definitely think this the place to buy your sausages from. They had some butcher cuts as well, but its pretty clear that its not their specialty.

We wrapped up and Randazzo’s for seafood. This is probably one of the first seafood shops that didn’t smell like seafood which is pretty amazing considering the amount of fish they had all over the place. They had a great variety and the prices were very reasonable (gorgeous sea scallops for $10 a pound). Also, in front of the shop they had a counter with a guy shucking oysters & clams for you on demand. Then you put whatever fixings you want on it and shoot them down. I am not a huge oyster fan (the last one I had was 4 years ago), but I enjoyed these. They had a very fresh flavor to it.

All in all, it was a great day. Its a moderate hike to get out there because you need to take the train up and then take a bus, but you can make a nice field trip out of it by getting lunch with some friends and then doing your shopping afterward. You can check out Mireille’s post for more information and photos.