The Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream truck sits in a sunbeam on a quiet cobblestoned street in Soho, like an upscale Mr. Softee waiting to be discovered by the hordes crossing Prince Street. Unlike a truck with an irksome jingle, however, Van Leeuwan quietly exudes class, from the gentle yellow color and elegant font used on the vehicle, to the flavors list, which ruminates on the high-quality ingredients used in its ice cream.
There’s some examples of this globe-trotting, gourmand-speak on the web site: hormone-free milk from cows that graze “in pastures in the foothills of the Adirondacks,” vanilla beans harvested from “organic bourbon and Tahitian vanilla orchids grown in Papua New Guinea,” pistachios grown “in the rugged lands of Bronte, in southern Italy.” I expected that the thoughtfulness employed to pick and present these ingredients would also produce a tastier-than-average ice cream. But while this is different from your average cone, it’s not exactly mind-blowing stuff.
If you’ve ever had homemade ice cream, that’s what it’s like–a bit icy in texture, and lacking in the upfront flavor and cloying sweetness. I thought that Van Leeuwan’s product tasted fresh and clean, but this was probably mostly a result of how it was presented. I sampled the Currants and Cream ($3.95 for a small) first, and ended up eating all the tart little frozen currants, leaving the uninteresting cream behind in a trash can. The subtle frozen heat in the Ginger flavor was intriguing, but quickly grew boring with only a few bursts of candied ginger in the mix. The winner of the three I tried was the Giandijia, a blend of hazlenut and Michel Cluizel chocolate. It had a subtle rich chocolate flavor, nicely balanced with earthy hazlenut, with a creamier texture than the other two.
While I’m a little confused by the paradox of an environmentally-friendly ice cream truck (how much gas does it take to fill that thing, let alone air-lift pistachios from Italy?), the use of some local, small-farm products and cups made from natural fibers is a nice touch. Plus the location alone, in the wilds of uber-luxurious Soho, makes it a refreshing pit-stop after an exhausting day of shopping. Be sure to get your artisanal ice cream fix before the last lazy days of summer slip away.
Van Leeuwen ice cream truck - Greene Street between Prince and Spring Street from 1pm-8pm; University Place between 11th and 12th St. 8-11pm.
Check their site for more locations.
It’s pretty ballsy to open an upscale pizzeria spitting distance from Lombardi’s, a New York institution. But while the tourists hunker down over checkered tablecloths tasting old-school coal-oven perfection, locals head a block south to L’asso, to browse through newfangled “pizza creations” or to grab a slice and a glass of wine.
It’s easy to miss L’asso–maybe it’s the abstract signage. I went a few times when it first opened, liked it, and forgot about it. It’s doubly easy to miss the fact that they serve pizza by the slice, something that Lombardi’s and most other “serious” pizzerias don’t do. But in case you think they’re not serious, L’asso prides itself on adhering to the rules for Pizza D.O.C.–guidelines that specify the type of tomatoes (san marzano), the type of mozzarella (buffalo milk), and the type of oven (domed, brick, and heated to 420 degrees), deemed necessary by the maestros Italy to produce a genuine neapolitan pizza. The atmosphere is very laid-back chic-cafe, with a wine list and dubby mood music, and a fairly extensive menu with about eighteen varieties of individual-sized pizzas. The slices ($2) are behind the counter, and since most of their customers are ordering off the menu, yours will have probably been sitting for a little while and warrant reheating. It’s still as decent a slice as you’ll find in the area - just stick to the margherita and steer clear of the blandly cheesy bianco. However on Monday through Friday they have a happy hour special - $1 slices with $3 Brooklyn Lager on tap. They were churning out slices at a good clip so mine was fresh from the oven, with a light, slightly chewy crust, sweet-and-tangy sauce, just a few melty daubs of fresh mozzarella, and drizzled in olive oil. Granted, it was about half the size of a regular slice but it was a freakin’ DOLLAR so I wasn’t complaining. Then again, this is not too far from Chinatown, where bargains are not unheard of.
I am pretty much over the face-sized, cardboard-crusted, sloppy Artichoke slices–this is closer to a slice as it should be.
L’asso 192 Mott Street at Kenmare
Sun-Wed 12pm-12am, Thurs-Sat 12pm-3am
One of the major problems I have with the countryside is that while trees and fresh air and miles of breathing space are nice, there’s not enough new stuff to be impressed by. Because people are making these impressing things, and people drift toward where the money’s good. That’s what makes going for a solid month in New York City without being impressed all the more depressing. If I can’t find something here to excite me, where can I?
And then I bit into a cinnamon sugar donut from Balthazar Bakery. If there were to be snack equivalent of crack, this would be it. THIS is what I have wanted donuts to be, since back in the day when good donuts meant a cardboard box of chocolate-glazed munchkins. The cinnamon sugar donut ($1.25) is small, less than palm-sized. When biting into it you break throught an apply crisp, brown-sugary outer layer, into an extremely light doughy middle with plenty of air pockets. This donut ranks beyond Krispey Creme and Donut Plant due to the slightly fritter-like crunch of that outer layer. My god. This is why I moved here.
Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring St.
Yesterday afternoon, just as the sun was coming out, I was wondering mellow-minded down Mulberry Street, where I encountered a man handing out candy stamped with cartoon mushrooms. I gathered this was connected to the giant pile of pulsh, adorably demonic Japanese ’shrooms I spied through the storefront, so I decided to investigate. I made my way past the sculpted tumble of stuffed mushrooms, beyond a post-nuclear soft-drink refridgerator stocked with mushroom-printed aluminum cans, and down a flight of stairs to a plate of biscuit-colored mini-mushrooms labelled “EAT ME.” I plopped one into my mouth, thinking that the sense of taste ought to be incorporated into conceptual art more often. As the super-sweet candy dissolved, it released a sugary cloud of powder that somehow lodged in my windpipe. I couldn’t breathe.
Red-faced and wheezing, with my panic deepening by the second, I made a dash for the exit and worst-case-scenarioed down the street onto a 6 train just as the doors whirred shut. I realized I had unconsciously steered myself toward home. Better to die unobserved in my studio apartment if I could manage it, I guess.
I slumped across from the loudest trio of tourists in Manhattan. Doughy and middle-aged, but giddy and dressed in spangly denim, their cocktail-fueled screeching filled the car. “OHMYGAWD you were so right ON. Everyone was wearing JEANS in that place!” I focused on the toe-cleavage on one, who’d crammed fat digits into her narrow high heels, in a zen-like effort to quell the unsatisfied coughing fit. Somehow they must have taken this as a sign of friendliness. One of them, a frosted blonde no older than forty but whose face furrowed like a pug’s, handed me a camera. “Can you take our picture?”
I was still convulsing, and it was hard to hold the camera still. “When were the subways built?” Toe-Pudge asked after I snapped the picture, as if the exact date was something I should know. I actually did, but would be deliberately vague about it to my dying breath. “Around 1900,” I choked.
“1900, that’s impossible,” Pug-Face said. “They didn’t have subways back than. How would they run?” I stared at them, purple, snot running uncontrollably down my face. “Steam!” said their friend. They all found this uproriously funny, laughing with their faces pointed at me. “Steam!” Toe-Pudge squealed, kicking her porcine feet. They were still cackling as I fled the car at Astor Place, hacking out the last of the mushroom-candy dust.
Today while wandering through Soho to spy upon cute geeks buying iPhones I happened upon my favorite New York street performer/salesperson, Peeler Man. If you suspect that you might ever need a vegetable peeler, you should wait til you encounter him.
I call it street theater, because make no mistake, Peeler Man, whose name is actually Joe Ades, is a notch or two beyond QVC hosts when it comes to impassioned conviction about the amazing versatility of the Star vegetable peeler. An older, well-dressed gentleman with wild, white hair, Ades can usually be seen on some busy sidewalk, crouched over plastic bins holding potatoes and carrots, bellowing in a British accent, a wad of bills clenched between latex-gloved, orange-stained fingertips. One’s first impression is that perhaps the guy has lost his mind, but then you stop and watch him do his thing, realize he’s serious, and eventually, appreciate the entertainment value.
“NOW! I’LL SHOW YOU HOW IT WORKS! FIRST! YOU PEEL THE CARROT!” he shouts to a tentative-but-intrigued flock of tourists and shoppers standing only a few feet away. Peels pile up like magic beneath his fingers. “THEN! YOU SLICE THE CARROT!” he folds the paper-thin slices between his fingers, cuts some more, and easy as that, even, identical carrot shavings shoot from the peeler. He sells the Star peelers for $5 a pop, and says they’re made in Switzerland, and only available exclusively from him on the sidewalks of New York.
Apparently he was recently featured in Vanity Fair, and lives comfortably with his wife on the Upper West Side. If nothing else, he’s just another reason to love this town.