There are a lot of Italian bakeries in New York. One sure place to find them is on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, which is hard to get to — no trains, long walk. I discovered a worthy competitor in an unexpected place — Forest Hills, also hard to get to. So, flip a coin.

After drinking an egg cream at Eddie’s Sweet Shop, I was walking back to the subway and passed La Dolce. I had to go in, drawn by the scent of baking whatever: cookies, biscotti, an oven’s waft that was fragrant, arresting and seductive. Lo and behold I found a showcase of temptation. Worse, it’s not expensive so you can buy a lot, eat it all, put on a huge amount of weight and, remembering it’s far away and takes a while to get to, maybe you should buy even more to save yourself another trip.

I like this review of La Dolce Italia, a complaint that I found online: “I bought a pound of mixed Italian biscotti and cookies in August. They were all stale. Hard and dry. I suggest that customers ask for a sample of each type of cookie before making a purchase. This was the second time this has happened.”

You don’t have to be a New Yorker to know that biscotti are exactly that — hard and dry. It’s intentional.

Live and not learn.

It turns out that La Dolce is well-known with countless online reviews.