Veniero's (Italian pasticceria e caffe, East Village)

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Location
342 E. 11th St.
south side of the street, between 1st and 2nd Aves.

Cuisine:
Italian pasticceria e caffe

Tonight I had the distinguished honor of taking two Italians to two different Italian restaurants. One was for southern Italian cuisine, the second was for dessert.

Dessert, of course, was at Veniero's. Ducati was in search of an afogato, and failed miserably. Well, they did serve affogati at the restaurant, but the line was too long.

Instead, Colomba insisted on getting dessert. He asked for one sfogliatella (layered phyllo layers encasing a (traditionally ricotta-based) cream. The server (lovely Asian woman that she was) corrected him. He asked for uno cannolo. She corrected him again. "No, it's 'cannoli.'" I started giggling. So he acquiesced. Clearly the woman was right and he was wrong. He asked if she could cut both the sfogliatella ("no, 'sfogliatelle'") into three pieces, and the cannolo ("no, 'cannoli'") in half. She complied. He apologized for butchering Italian.

She liked him so much, she gave him a bunch of cookies for free.

Too bad we were way too full to truly enjoy the dessert. Because the 112 year-old institution is a pretty darn good institution.