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.