Think Coffee serves a mean cappuccino any day, but their iced cappuccino is My Drink for the summer. This beverage consists of 3 shots of espresso mixed with a little cold milk (to avoid plastic cup meltage), a bunch of ice, and lots of fluffy foamed milk spooned over top. The fusion of warm foam settling over ice cubes is not to be missed, so be sure to grab yours off the counter as soon as it’s ready. While it’s not technically on the menu—the chalkboard lists an “iced latte” which contains more milk and less foam—it has quite a few fans. “This is my favorite drink to make,” said the barista during my last visit.

There are other coffeeshops that I like, such as Abraco and Ninth Street Espresso, but I generally don’t linger there. At Think, however, sometimes I’ll settle in and do some reading. If you can tolerate the top 40 they play on weekends, it’s the kind of roomy, laid-back corner locale that seems to invite hanging out in blast of the A/C, or grabbing a chair outside to muse over the yuppified shell of CBGBs. Often enough, there’s someone with a lot of bags who seems to have set up a temporary office/rsidence, although there’s no free wifi at the Bowery location. You have to head over to the Mercer Street locale, deep in NYU country, to have webernets with your Think Coffee.

As for the menu, the coffee is organic and fair trade, and the bagels are the first thing they run out of (around 10:30am). Later in the day Think servers tolerable pre-made sandwiches (about $7), including mozzarella and tomato, hummus and vegetables, and swiss and prosciutto, or toasted cheese made-to-order. A number of diet-busting treats, like rugelah, brownies, and pecan pie, are in regular supply. In the evening they server beer and wine, with $3 pints during happy hour from 7-8. Recently, the listed beer was the mighty tasty Sixpoint Sweet Action.

Think Coffee
1 Bleecker St. (corner of Bowery & Bleecker)
Also: 248 Mercer St. (between 3rd St. & 4th St.)
Mon-Fri 7am-11:30pm Sat & Sun: 8am-11:30pm

I’ve lived in the East Village for five years, and part of what’s kept me here is the fact that I can find any kind of food I want, any night of the week. Still one of snacking’s fundamentals eludes me–I cannot find a decent slice of pizza in my neighborhood. I’m not talking about whole pies, although lately my hood’s been dealt a sad blow in that regard. Rumored by some to be the best pizzeria in the city, Una Pizza Napoletana has just closed its doors, its owner fled to California, its harmoniously-layered pies and dreamlike, airy-crisp dough but a memory.

Still, no matter how good it was, I never felt quite right about plunking down 30 bucks to dine on the finest pizza money can buy. I like straight-up slice joints, cheap pizza with tasty sauce and soulful crust that’s been charred in an old oven. The East Village could use its own Di Fara’s or Joe’s; instead we have a bunch of Ray’s knockoffs and Artchoke Basille, (however I feel now, I loved their gluttonous, cardboard-crusted slices once upon a time, in my folly-drenched youth).

So when Veloce Pizzeria opened a few weeks ago it seemed poised to fill a niche. An upscale pizza and wine bar from Porchetta chef Sara Jenkins, Veloce specializes in pan pizza–square pies with crust that’s thinner and lighter than Sicilian style pizza, yet thicker and somewhat greasier than Neapolitan style. The space feels warm, walled with backlit wine bottles and a long bar that I could see myself cozying up to with a cold pint of Radeberger.

Ambience can only take you so far, though. The proof of good pizza is in the crust. The first margherita pizza ($15) I ordered was about 30% burned, but even that had more character than the second pie, which was thin and soggily overwhelmed by its toppings. A slice ($3) I ordered on a subsequent trip was notable for its oversalted sauce, while the crust was a mix of crispy and mushy. Mind you, on all these occasions I ate every bite, not only because I was hungry: this is better-than-Ray’s pizza, they sell by the slice (though sometimes there’s a bit of a wait), and the pan-pizza style is a nice change of pace. But it’s bewildering that Frank Bruni ranked this pizzeria #2 in front of Una Pizza Napoletana (although he might be right about the other menu items–the potato fritters appetizer was a dud).

Veloce is worth a shot if you’re hanging around late and want to grab a slice at the bar. If a whole pizza is what you’re looking for, Three of Cups on First Ave and 5th street has consistently-good cracker-thin crust and reasonable prices.

Veloce Pizzeria
103 First Avenue between 6th and 7th St.
open noon-2am every day

An all-vegan ice cream parlor that looks like an old-time sweet shop, Lula’s might be the lacktard’s jackpot. Now instead of envying the cone-lapping trances shuffling down the sidewalk, gastronomically-challenged folks and their omnivore buddies can bond over frozen treats here. The menu includes a couple of soy milk-based ice creams, including a convincing cake batter flavor, and about ten nut milk-based ice creams, many of them gluten-free. My favorite of the nut-based flavors is cinnamon, but other notables include orange creamsicle, cookies and cream, and mango coconut. Sampling is not only permitted, but encouraged, and I didn’t get any “omfg she’s asking for a fourth sample” attitude.

(There seems to be some variation in scoop sizing. On my second trip I got a much larger scoop)

As for taste, this is a pretty good dairy substitute, with no weird soy flavor and spot-on creamy texture. There’s a telling lack of buttery richness, but I can eat about half a dish ($3.75) before I even register it. Vegan treats like white-”chocolate” covered pretzels and pectin gummi bears are also for sale, not to mention egg creams ($3.75). An egg cream is a classic NYC beverage (Lou Reed even wrote a song about it) that usually consists of chocolate syrup, seltzer and milk mixed to form a fizzy head. Lula’s non-dairy version was a fair approximation of the classic egg cream I’d had at Gem Spa, although in both cases I got the sense that I was drinking a poor man’s ice cream float.

Lula’s Sweet Apothecary
516 East 6th Street between Avenue A and Avenue B
Wed 3pm-10pm Thu 3pm-12am Fri-Sat 3pm-1am

As country roadside burrito stands go, they don’t make ‘em better than Bubby’s. This teeny trailer with its green, hand-drawn “Burritos” sign appears sometime in May, near a farm stand at the intersection of Route 199 and 9G in Red Hook, NY (upstate, not Brooklyn). The vegetarian menu boasts just four items, all made-to-order: burrito with guacamole ($6.50), burrito without guacamole ($5.50), cheese quesadilla ($4.00), and auguas de frutas ($1.00). The guac burrito is a satisfyingly fat bundle of rice, beans, lettuce, tomato salsa, cheese, sour cream and guacamole wrapped in a toasted tortilla. Everything tastes fresh, and just a bit of chipotle hot sauce, available at the counter, adds some welcome heat. A couple of picnic benches suffice for seating, and the crowd–if you dare call it that–is a mellow mix of locals, daytrippers and Bardies (hippie-ish students from the art school up the road). The husband and wife team that run Bubby’s split their time between upstate NY and their cafe in Mexico, so come autumn the trailer disappears, not to return until next summer. HIghly recommended stop for lunchtime munchies if you’re in the area.

Bubby’s Burritos
intersection of Route 199 and 9G Red Hook, NY
open during the summer Tues-Sat 11-5
If the weather is stormy, or portends storminess, they may be closed. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.