Cannoli-ventures: Please, sir, I want to go to Hoboken

For spring break this past year I once again found myself in New York and thus needed a cannoli. Julie casually informed me that the bakery where the show Cake Boss is filmed is in Hoboken, NJ which isn't too far from Manhattan. We decided to embark into the unknown world of New Jersey to find ourselves a real italian cannoli provided by the overly confident and cheesy Buddy Valastro.

There was one minor hiccup. We had no clue how to get to Hoboken.

However, that's what the helpful workers at the Port Authority are for. Thus we began asking anyone and everyone who seemed knowledgeable and found our way into Hoboken on the PATH.

It was a surprisingly windy day and I was sad to have worn such a flowy dress, but as Julie and I are prone to do, we had a small photo safari before finding the bakery.

The views of the city from across the river made a fantastic backdrop and the wind, when it behaved, gave some pretty cool effects.

Starving from our exhaustive photo taking, we wandered through the streets of Hoboken. My camera had died, but we could not stop documenting our adventure. At a walgreens we saw a case of disposable cameras that brought back so many memories of childhood, we opted to indulge in the nostalgia and document the rest of the trip with that. Be warned, picture quality decreases greatly. . .

Within a few minutes we had found Carlo's Bakery. We had also found the absurdly long line to get into Carlo's bakery.

I will do many things for a cannoli, but I will not wait in a line for 3 hours unless I will be receiving some divinely created tower of cannolis where a fountain stream of chocolate sauce drips down from the top. 

There must be another cannoli in all of Hoboken, right? So we began walking through the streets stopping in every Italian restaurant or general bakery we found. One Italian place even advertised cannolis but broke our hearts by not actually having any. They directed us to a small bakery which had many Italian cookies, but no cannolis. After trying what seemed like every bakery in town, we were lost and despondent. We saw a pizza place right near Carlo's Bakery that had some desserts. Fearing yet another rejection, I hesitantly asked the guy if they had cannolis. He nodded and mumbled some form of 'yeah' and our faces lit up with childlike joy. Julie also promptly took a picture of the man who made our dreams come true that day.

Now, this was a pizza place, so the cannoli was pretty generic. The shells were pre-made and were too crunchy so that after the first bite the cannoli had crumbled into a million pieces in your hand. The cream was at least seemingly made from scratch and was pretty good. I was proud of the guy for putting a mild amount of effort into its presentation and dusting it with powdered sugar.  Overall, even if the cannoli was a little sub-par, after walking everywhere through Hoboken it was gratifying to finally end the cannoli-venture and go back to Manhattan victorious. 

recap:

date - March 27, 2011

location - Tiny pizza place, Hoboken, NJ

company - julie

food - cannoli and slice of BBQ Chicken Pizza
review - premade shell was a disappointment, but cream was satisfactory