One of the great things about living in New York are the little food shops and butcher stores. And with a nasty neighborhood grocery store like mine (Key Food on Grand), I'm ever-grateful for the plethora of small merchants.
For this entry, I'm going to focus on a few spots for Italian food. We'll start with the closest place to me . . . the Lorimer Meat Market on Lorimer and Skillman. This tiny shop has sweet sausage, hot sausage, salami, mortadella, pancetta, proscuitto AND proscuitto di parma . . . and much more! There are many specific "pork stores" in this Italian 'hood, but the Lorimer Meat Market has a few more meat choices, like chicken cutlets and sirloin burgers. Sometimes I pick up imported pasta and cans of diced tomatoes (for making sauce) rather than trekking up to the regular grocery. But, the main reason I love them is that sausage! Delicious and fresh.
Going up Lorimer, the next stop is Sette Pani Bakery. This is the place to go if you're making a nice presentation. These pastries are gorgeous and dainty--and cost double what other bakeries charge. They also have fancy marizipan and truffles, and focaccia in several varieties for around $3.
Around the corner on Metropolitan between Lorimer and Leonard is my favorite bakery, Napoli . . . an all-bread bakery. Here you can get small rounds of Italian bread for just $.90, which you can easily finish before they go stale! They also have wonderful focaccia for just $1.50, which is two meals by itself! They only have a plain version, with tomato sauce. Once when I picked up a focaccia from the counter, the sweet lady who works there said "no, no" and went to the back . . . and came out with a freshly-baked one, still warm.
On Graham, there is another pork store at the corner of Metropolitan. I forget the name because the word "salumeria" is much larger on the sign than the actual name. Here they have a large selection of imported pastas and sauces, and best of all, prepared foods (like lasagna) and freshly-made raviolis! These range in price depending on fillings . . . these appetizing fillings include goat cheese, lobster, shrimp, and more . . .
Across the street on Graham is another bakery called Sal and Son's. The main reason I go here is to check if they have proscuitto focaccia on any given day. It's delicious, and falls somewhere between Sette Pani's and Napoli's price.
I've already mentioned this in the "cheap eats" section, but it bears repeating: Fortunato Brothers on Manhattan and Devoe is WONDERFUL. Much cheaper than Sette Pani, but just as mouth-watering. Many bigger, fluffier items, slightly less dainty. They quite possibly sell the best cannoli in New York, as well as several flavors of gelato. Check it out sometime!