Heather's Birthday Trip to Extraordinary Desserts - with a stop in Little Italy for dinner along the way

Thursday was Heather's birthday. Her sister was in town, so the 3 of us went out to dinner, and then afterwards decided it might be fun to go to Extraordinary Desserts on 5th Avenue. Looking back on it, we probably could have skipped the dinner beforehand.


This is the candle on our table at Bencotto Italian Kitchen, in Little Italy, where we had dinner. (I had to find something to do to amuse myself while Heather and Dana caught up on all the family matters.) It's a fairly new (open 5 months now) Northern Italian style restaurant located in a very modern concrete, steel and glass loft condo building. Good food, lots of energy.

Heather and Dana had pasta dishes, I had to try the lamb shank with roasted potatoes (I can make pasta at home). 

It's hard to describe Extraordinary Desserts, except to say that the name is quite accurate, but as luck would have it, we do have a few pictures. First up, the tea selection.

Heather thought some chocolate sounded good, here's her chocolate mouse cake, with Dana's strawberry shortcake in the background.

I went with the chocolate strudel, along with a cup of their very good coffee. Yes, those are real rose petals on top, along with some shaved white and dark chocolate on the 2 chocolate desserts. There was edible gold leaf on Dana's. They take the presentation quite seriously here.