Queens Comfort

I've eaten here once and the food was for the most part fantastic, really excellent flavors, but the restaurant itself needs a bit of work.  The pecan sticky bun was one of the best baked items I think I've ever had, and my dining partner agreed.  Outstanding flavor and texture. Tasted like a thin light brown butter caramel, really amazing flavors.

The Pork and Grits was for the most part also excellent.  Nice large portion of creamy grits in a deep red strong sauce, with a huge pile of pork on top.  Excellent dish, however parts of the pork were burnt.  There was not 'brunch' option to speak of, everything we paid for was separate which i found strange for a Sunday morning in Astoria.

The only negatives were that the music was way to loud, causing people to speak loud.  It was also very hot in there.  It has been brutally hot lately, when I go to a restaurant I expect to cool off.  Also the service is a bit off, there seem to be a lot of people working but not really paying attention to the tables.  For example one waitress filled the water glasses of the table next to us, but missed ours, perhaps it was because it was not her table?  Our server stacked the plates in front of my and a dirty fork fell into my lap...  The coffee was to strong for my taste.

Despite the small service issues the food is well priced and quite memorable, I want to return again and try a few more items, but for now I'd certainly recommend it at least for these 2 dishes.  A very welcome addition to the neighborhood.  

JJ's

This is the best Sushi place in Astoria, nobody else comes close.  You know what to expect at 95% of the sushi places in NYC; Miso soup, spicy tuna, green tea ice cream, etc.  This place does all the usual stuff with class and has introduced me to a few amazing, not often served cuts of fish.

I particularly enjoy the Salmon belly they serve often in the Sushi B combo.  A few years ago they started serving White Tuna, before I saw it featured in other places, I really like the texture and taste of this, much more than the usual tuna.  They also serve an excellent well seasoned Makeral which is not as fishy as Makeral often is.  The Miso as mentioned is above the usual grade, its very rich and delicious.  The spicy tuna, while not everyone taste, I find just perfect.  They seem to season it lightly with sesame oil, which adds that nutty almost smokey essence and gently coats the tuna.  Love this! The crunchy rolls have tempura flakes that are prepared with green food coloring, at least that's what I assume, because they do nothing for the flavor but the fun is kicked up a notch, and they are perfectly crunchy.  Love this also.  Memorable food.

Aside from the Sushi, the other items I've enjoyed are their famous Edemame dumplings.  The soft creamy inside is a bit strange inside a dumpling, although they are tasty and everyone I know who has tried them loves them.  Also the Miso Eggplant is fantastic.  Is is rich, salty and delicious, they do not skimp on the Miso.  My favorite thing to order is the Sushi B combo, it is a great mix of all pieces of sushi and a tuna roll, with soup or salad.  Perfect mix of hot and cold food, perfect size, great selection of whatever is fresh, although usually its the same types of fish.  I don't eat here very often anymore because they are quite busy and frankly their delivery is fast and courteous, so I order from here whenever I've craving sushi.  Highly recommended!

Astoria!

I'm Dave Shichman, Astoria Queens resident since 2007.  I dine out often, at least once a week, every week.  Thankfully Astoria is a food paradise.  The diversity, authenticity and quality of the food here is incredible.  Since I often post on Yelp, i figured i'd start this blog to track all my reviews.  I worked in the food industry in high school, summers in college, and briefly after getting my masters while job hunting.  Food has always been a big part of my life, my parents say i got extreemly excited after tasting strawberries for the first time as a child, and Sunday BBQs at my house were a weekly tradition.  I love to cook as well.  If you have a place to recommend that I perhaps have not tried (or blogged about) let me know, questions, comments, recipes to DaveShichman@gmail.com

Zenon Taverna

Zenon has always been one of my favorite places in Astoria.  It impresses my on all fronts.  The food is consistently excellent, well cooked, tasty and massive portions.  The service is perfect, its a family place and they are warm and friendly throughout the meal, one reason I've enjoyed birthdays and holidays here (thanksgiving 2009).

I visited here again Friday night with friends and family, we all loved it.  Everything in these pictures was included in the Meza Meat meal (aside from the Grilled Octopus which is a must order at Zenon).

 

Here is my review of Zenon from 2009:

I've been here twice in the last week and i absolutely love this place.  Its nice inside, like someones home, friendly, clean, busy, but the tables are far enough apart so your not on top of the next table as you might be in Manhattan.  You can take your time here, they wont rush you out at all, in fact, its slow food, as its excellent.  The wait staff is very friendly, knowledgeable about the food and attentive.  The prices are very good for huge portions.

The food is the best part, huge portions of perfectly cooked/prepared Greek food.  Excellent flavors, and textures, everything was fresh, nothing was disliked at all.  The first time we went to Zenon was on Thanksgiving for their thanksgiving meal.  Not your average thanksgiving dinner.  Started with a cream of turkey soup, and as expected it had lemon in it.  Great flavors, the lemon was a perfect fit.  The stuffed grape leaves are some of the best ive ever had, sweet and salty filled with i believe pork and other things.  The fried pork and potato meatballs are good, but not my favorite thing here.  The turkey was moist, included some dark meat which i enjoy and was accompanied by a great rice stuffing with raisins.  Great meal and at $22.95 or so, it was a great value.

The Meze platters are what they are famous for, and reading about them here on yelp, I had to try it.  It was extra special for me because one of the best meals i've ever had was at a well known restaurant in Rhodes Greece called Ta Kioupia , where they just kept bringing plate after plate of wonderful food.  This meze platter is the closest thing i've had to that.  A huge feast of a meal for 2 or more people, choosing from either fish, meat or vegetarian options for around $20.  A tremendous amount of food and an excellent price.  Appetizers were excellent, Tahini, tzaziki, tarama, salad too was excellent, few more items too.  We had the meat option and it was a huge portion of quail, pork and more pork.  Would have been good to have a little lamb with the meal, but thats my only complaint.  Smoked pork loin was excellent, so were the grilled pork meatballs or sausages.  Grilled hallumi was excellent and salty as expected.  Best quail i've ever had, very tasty.  We did not have room for desert but we ordered it anyway, both items we had were just alright, passable to say the least.  Fill up on the meal.

Overall a wonderful meal.  Very inexpensive for what you get, tasty, cooked well, excellent selection, friendly service, perfect meal.  I'll be back soon.

BareBurger

Interesting night.  Excellent burgers.  Other things can be improved but overall very cool, fun place with good food.  To start we ordered the fries which were not as crispy as they should have been.  They are not double fried, which is easy to do, but they are still good and well seasoned.  I enjoyed 2 of the 3 sauces, decent, but nothing memorable.

Onto the burgers, I had the MAUI WOWIE BURGER... AMAZING!  But let me clarify, the burger itself was well cooked and thick as a burger should be, but on the lean side.  That is not a bad thing, certainly when I cook burgers at home I'm looking for a lean piece of meat to ground, (90%/10% ground chuck is my usual mix) but when I go out on a Friday night and order a burger I expect it to be juicy.  This was not.  It's surprising to see such a lean burger as the only Beef variety as they also offer the much leaner Ostrich.  That said, the toppings, buns and sauce really took this burger to the next level.  I've never had smoked mozzarella on a burger and it might become my favorite topping ever!  The smokiness was just perfect, and way more intense than the usual smokiness you get from a bacon burger.  This burger left a smoky, umami aftertaste, just awesome.  The only thing that was a miss for me was the canned pineapple, I would have much preferred grilled fresh pineapple.  The other burger at the table was BIG BLUE BACON BURGER which was also very good, thoroughly enjoyed by the table.  

After a 2nd visit I have to recommend the Lamb burger!  Rich and gamey, but not that funky, although clearly lamb.  Loved this burger! I thought it would be dry but it was actually much more juicy than the beef burger, and with much more flavor.  We also tried an additional sauce this visit, the pesto mayo, and again it was a disappointment.  I was also confused as i expected it to be some shade of green, and it was instead light pink... Perhaps they gave me the wrong sauce?  Decent but not memorable and one note kinda sauce.

Overall fun place with good to excellent food.  Good prices for the area, the pitchers of beer are super affordable.  The service is decent, they certainly do not rush you, they let you sit and drink which is nice.  However our waitress ignored me twice... The first time I thought maybe she did not see me, but twice?  Really?  Oh well, it reflected in her tip... And it is not a reflection on the rest of the staff, the busboy, runner, and hostess were all very nice, as was the waitress until she ignored me.  I really enjoyed the vibe, music, decorations, and of course the food.  Good value also.  Great location and highly recommended!

Gandhi

This is my go to place in Astoria for Indian food in Astoria, I much prefer it over Seva around the corner.  I ordered from here countless times and have never been disappointed.  For starters the sampler platter is a great deal ($8) and a good variety of food.  The samosa's are standard, but excellent still.  Well fried crusty shell, not oily at all, great flavor on both the meat and the vegetable version, which has corn and carrots in addition to the usual potatoes and peas.  The onion Bhaji is another item I enjoy, but it is one of the heavier versions of the dish I've had.  My favorite dishes here are the Lamb Korma and the Chicken Makhani, both fantastic.  The Korma is very thick, rich, buttery and nutty with shredded coconut and raisins.  It is packed with flavor and the lamb has a good balance of meat to fat.  The Makhani is fantastic, very strong flavors, not quite as thick as the Korma. Very buttery and just delicious.  The chicken is very lean and cooked well, still juicy.  The nan is good but not quite as crispy as I like.  The service is very calm and attentive, they are friendly and relaxed.  They play excellent classical Indian music, slightly louder than you might expect, which I really enjoy.  It is not background music.  They have a good selection of wines including a few Indian wines.  The prices are very good and the portions are huge.  Highly recommended, for delivery also.

Spiced

I've eaten here once and the food was so good I ordered it for lunch the next day!  As expected the food was extremely spicy, although they are happy to turn the spice level down upon request, and not every dish is a killer. The first time I ate there we started with the Honey Chili Tofu to start, good fry on the tofu it was very crunchy but I did not love the sweet sauce it came with, a bit one dimensional.  For my entree I ordered the Chili Garlic Chicken.  The choice between ordering it 'dry' and 'gravy' was new to me but I'm glad I tried the dry as it was excellent.  Very spicy, lots of rich flavor, glazed onions, excellent textures.  I really loved this dish.  Someone at the table has the Spiced Triple Szechwan which was really good and also spicy.   The next day i ordered from the Indian menu and it was also excellent.  The chicken korma was packed with flavor, rich heavy deep sauce, really good dish.  The nan is well cooked and light.  The chili paneer is also excellent, again I ordered it dry. Worth mentioning is the value here is excellent, the portions are large for very inexpensive prices.  They deliver far (thank you!) and its worthy of takeout and a visit as the ambiance is very nice (sans music).  Highly recommended!

M Wells

(Not quite Astoria, but walking distance... Excellent food!)

 

This is a real special diner.  There are so many aspects that make it seem like a normal everyday diner, of course its set in a traditional diner building and has the classic booth and counter seats, but the food and vibe bring this place to another level.  Even the warm, motherly service you get at any diner was present here, in a hip, young kinda way.  Nice friendly attentive service.  I was very excited to try this place after all the great reviews and i must say i was very impressed.  I sat across from the flat top grill at about 11:30AM and watched the action.  This place takes classics and gives them a high class spin, such as searing a piece of Foie Gras to accompany a corn chowder, or adding a piece onto grilled cheese.  They also make alot of creative food that seem exceedingly original, such as the spaghetti sandwich which looks awesome, although heavy and greasy.  I opted for the Esgargot and Bone Marrow.  Although it was not a large plate, it was a fantastic, and had my begging for more.  I enjoyed the breadcrumbs on top also, a really rich dish i'd order again in a minute.  I opted for the soup sans Foie and I really enjoyed it but in retrospect i should have gone all the way with that soup.  The coffee was much better than normal diner coffee, it was excellent.  I took home a Cuban sandwich as i'm a sucker for pork, and i have to say it was fantastic and might have been one of the best Cubans i've ever had.  Sometimes they get dry and a bit flat on taste, but this was packed with flavor and grilled on the flat top with butter, can you get any better?  Excellent flavors, really good sandwich!  I cannot wait to return here, the baked goods looks great and very fresh.  The staff was running around prepping food and cooking, it was quite and exciting little place to eat in, highly recommended!