Eating along the N line: From black sesame flavored dessert to Sicilian pizza, Bensonhurst has everything
The dilapidated 18th Ave.
Black sesame with Thai glutinous rice from Just Desserts.
The dilapidated 18th Ave. train station in Bensonhurst may not currently be one of the city’s prettiest — it’ll be under renovation for at least the next year — but don’t let that stop you from visiting. This avenue offers plenty of great places to grab a quick bite to eat.
Snow ice and black sesame
You won’t find much chocolate at Just Desserts , a Chinese-style sweets shop that opened in 2013, but rather flavors like mango, coconut, green tea, black sesame and red bean.
All end up in a slew of modern semi-frozen desserts like “snow ice,” or soft ribbons of flavored shaved ice ($5.25), or “snowy,” a bowl of milky, paper-thin ice crystals topped with ice cream and fresh fruit (it’s $7.25 with cubes of ripe mango).
There are also traditional sweet soups served warm or cold — like a bowl of black sesame paste and sticky Thai black rice ($5.50) — plus bubble teas and composed desserts like green tea layer cakes and caramel-topped puddings. If you order in advance, Just Desserts also makes whole cakes. A domed sponge cake topped with thick cream plus molded chocolate rings and mixed fresh berries is $28.
Just Desserts: 7211 18th Ave. near 73rd St., Brooklyn; (718) 676-2227
Just Desserts offers treats like mango "snowy" with green tea ice cream.
The slice is right
When John Mortillaro and Vincent DeGrezia founded J & V Pizzeria in 1955, pizza wasn’t yet a New York City icon. In fact, says Mortillaro’s widow Stella, the pair sold the “first pizza by the slice that I knew of in the neighborhood.”
Today, Mortillaro’s son Joseph runs the restaurant with help from Stella, his brother John and a few long-standing pizzaiolos, who still make pies from scratch and fresh all day. Though the price of a slice has risen in the past 61 years from 15 cents to $2.75, the menu has stayed much the same, meaning the Mortillaros stick to what they know best: pizza. There are round thin-crust pies, the thick, focaccia-like square Sicilians, and the thinner, chewier tomato-topped squares known as grandma pizza.
Each style has their devoted fans, as does the “JoJo,” a 10-year-old creation named after Joseph’s oldest son, who is also known as Joe. That’s a chicken parm or meatball sandwich — the only two sandwiches J & V Pizzeria makes — built on half a loaf of soft, fresh baked bread that gets basted with a mix of garlic, fresh parsley and olive oil.
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