So Kat called yesterday afternoon as I was returning from Linens n’ Things and wanted to see if I’d go meet her and R at Mosholu golf course for a quick 9 holes. I called up Twoin and an hour later we were teeing off. Mosholu is a very short 9 hole municipal course in the Bronx. One par 4 was under construction, leaving it as a par 3 and making the course play even shorter. I’ve never gotten so much use out of my 52 degree wedge, not just for tee shots on the par 3’s, but on most of my approach shots too. All in all, it wasn’t a bad muni experience. It was crowded but the pace moved along decently enough. The biggest difference from what I was used to was in the speed of the greens. Most of the greens looked in great shape when viewed from far away, but when you get to putting on them, you realize that they are cut to what would be fairway height on most regular courses. Kat had a new driver and had mixed results with it, but she really smoked one towards the end which was pretty impressive. Her long putts had some distance problems but her putts from 4 feet were totally money. But even more impressive was R’s tee shots on the short par 3’s. He stuck more than a couple shots pin high and tight; great shots by any standards.

We managed to finish our round just before the skies opened up and torrential showers came pouring down. Since we were already in the Bronx, we decided to head over to the Italian section of Arthur Ave. which is well known for it’s local market and restaurants. The neighborhood is one of New York’s culinary meccas which I’ve yet to explore. Unfortunately the market was closed so I didn’t get to check it out this time around, but we did get to eat at Emilia’s, a little place that Twoin eats at once a week (because he’s got a work site a few blocks away). Bread arrived at the table along with a little dish of nicely seasoned sweet ripe tomato wedges in oil and vinegar with tiny cubes of mozzarella. We ordered a couple carafes of their easy drinking house red and started with a few apps. Their calamari was nice and crisp and served with a slightly spicy marinara. Solidly executed but not spectacular. The stuffed mushroom app consisted of medium sized button mushrooms stuffed with sausage and gorgonzola, sitting in a pool of gorgonzola sauce. Delicious, but the gorgonzola pretty much overpowered the dish, even obscuring the flavor of the sausage. The real winner was the zucchini flowers app. Stuffed with cheese, battered and deep fried, they were puffy, juicy, cheesy and moist all at the same time. Fantastic stuff.

For my entree, I had the lamb shank over risotto. The shank was mildly seasoned so as to allow the fatty, lamby goodness to shine through unfettered. The risotto was perfectly cooked and exactly the right accompaniment to the lamb. The side of zucchini and carrots were also noteworthy. The zucchini was cooked soft but not mushy and the carrots were unusually sweet. Twoin had a very nice Chilean sea bass topped with a crust that included bits of sundried tomatoes. Kat had a simple pasta dish with cheese and red sauce which had a delicious edge to it due to the fact that it was baked, resulting in a few little toasty edges in the pasta. R had the linguini with white clam sauce which looked uninteresting so I didn’t bother sampling it.

Then on to dessert. Man, that glorious dessert. Twoin ordered the peach sorbetto served in a hollowed out peach. I didn’t try it because I was too caught up in my own dessert- the Black Forest chocolate cake. It consisted of two layers of chocolate sponge sandwiching a chocolate creme that added an ethereal lightness. The result was a dessert light in texture yet rich in chocolate intensity and accented by marvelous sour cherries in the chocolate creme. It was so good that when the waiter returned to the table with our espressos and I was only half way done, I told him to bring me another serving. Kat had gotten up to go to the ladies room before the desserts arrived and by the time she returned, I was already halfway through eating my second one. It took all my willpower to save some cake for her to try. Twoin asked the waiter where they got the desserts from, and apparently they order it from a company called Bindi. If you love chocolate you simply have to find someplace that sells these Bindi Black Forest Cakes or make your way over to Emilia’s and try it there. It was a superb ending to a very satisfying meal. Definitely makes me want to go back and do some more exploring along Arthur Ave.