Gelato? In the middle of the winter?

Verily I say to you that every day is a good day for gelato! On my way to work and back using my alternate (read: back roads) route, I noticed a small coffee/gelato shop. Having seen this shop for nearly a year now, my curiosity finally got the better of me and I stopped in last Sunday for a looksie around. Although there is signage out front, you actually have to park in the back of the shop. Here is the sign by the door:


I was happily surprised to be greeted with a hand-written menu just inside the door. It seems our little coffee shop was replete with not only coffee and gelato, but also sandwiches, pizza, pastas, salads and more. I picked up a paper menu that was on the counter and realized that the entire contents of the paper menu were already on the hand-written menu.


I talked with the nice woman behind the counter who wasn't the owner, but did do her best to answer some of my questions. They have a limited kitchen at the shop, and only made several things from scratch. Things like the ravioli and other pastas were pre-made somewhere else and frozen. The sandwiches and pizzas are made fresh there, however. From what I can tell, I get the feeling that the owner is trying to do as much as he or she can with the space and limited kitchen that they do have and also trying to source their food as locally as they can.

I, however, was there for the gelato. There were about ten flavors out on display and you can taste whichever flavors (I tasted four before picking what I wanted) you like. I tasted the chocolate, coffee, pistachio, and dulce le leche. The nice thing is that when you order, you can mix up two flavors, one being on the bottom of the cup and one on top. They don't actually make the gelato. However, an Italian gentlemen from Little Italy in Cleveland, OH actually does. Apparently when additional gelato is ordered, it has to go through an interpreter because he doesn't speak any English.

For the top of my cup I choose Dulce Le Leche:


It was smooth and creamy and had swirls of the caramel running through it. It was a bit sweeter, but not overly so. The flavor really popped in my mouth.

After eating all of the Dulce Le Leche, I was left with the pistachio:


This also had the same lovely mouthful, but the flavor of the pistachios was wonderful and embracing. The woman behind the counter said that she didn't particularly care for it because it had such a strong nut flavor, but I loved it. I know the two photos look almost identical, but the pistachio did have the slightly off-green color to it and the flavor was DEFINITELY different.

I would definitely recommend you stop in and give it a shot. I'm going to stop back in some evening and try out some of their other food items.