Proof of Greek presence in Astoria

As if I haven't proven it already that there is a heavy Greek presence in Astoria, here's further proof:

This picture is taken at my grocery store (Trade Fair) and, as you can see, the bottom case displays a plethora of different types of fresh fetas from which to choose.  And don't fret, this still excludes the many pre-packaged fetas available in the cheese aisle.  I'm so spoiled :)  I've only tried about half of them by this point (I keep wanting to repeat certain ones that I especially love), but as I still have another half year in Astoria I have full faith that I'll have the chance to try the remaining ones.

If I've enticed you to go out to the store and buy some feta, try one of my favorite dishes, which is an amazing orzo dish that requires good quality feta:

Orzo with Roasted Vegetables

Ingredients

1 small eggplant, peeled and 3/4-inch diced 1 red bell pepper, 1-inch diced 1 yellow bell pepper, 1-inch diced 1 red onion, peeled and 1-inch diced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1/3 cup good olive oil 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/2 pound orzo For the dressing: 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons) 1/3 cup good olive oil 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper To assemble: 4 scallions, minced (white and green parts) 1/4 cup pignolis (pine nuts), toasted 3/4 pound good feta, 1/2-inch diced (not crumbled) 15 fresh basil leaves, cut into julienne Preparation Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Toss the eggplant, bell peppers, onion, and garlic with the olive oil, salt, and pepper on a large sheet pan. Roast for 40 minutes, until browned, turning once with a spatula. Meanwhile, cook the orzo in boiling salted water for 7 to 9 minutes, until tender. Drain and transfer to a large serving bowl. Add the roasted vegetables to the pasta, scraping all the liquid and seasonings from the roasting pan into the pasta bowl. For the dressing, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper and pour on the pasta and vegetables. Either mix in the scallions, pignolis, feta, and basil or, if serving cold, let cool to room temperature and then add these ingredients. Check the seasonings, and serve.

Food Update #8

To kick off the new year, I thought it would be good to tell you about some of the great restaurants we've dined at over the past month.  Enjoy!

Vesta Trattoria (21-02 30th Ave):  Delicious neighborhood Italian restaurant.  The quaint and simple setting make for a very inviting atmosphere and the food can't be beat.  The restaurant focuses on local green market ingredients and very inventive dishes.  We came for brunch, but will most definitely be dining there again for dinner! Brunch recommendations: Hangover pizza (potato, pancetta, sausage, fried eggs and spicy tomato sauce) and the fried eggs with polenta, asparagus, mushrooms, and truffle oil).  Mmm so tasty!

Mama's Empanadas (32-41 Steinway): So many empanada fillings to choose from!  The fillings range from all of the traditional items that you would expect (chicken, chorizo, beef, beans, etc.) and the less traditional (mac & cheese, seafood, etc.).  Additionally they have some sweet empanadas, which were delicious as well!  Not only were all of the empanadas tasty, but the price can't be beat!  Good for snack or meal time.

Basil  Brick Oven Pizza (28-17 Astoria Blvd): Wow, so lucky to have such a great brick oven pizza place near our apartment!  Not only is the pizza delicious (very thin crust, slightly burned edges from the oven), but also comes with so many unique options.  We opted for splitting two amazing pizzas: one topped with asparagus, peas, tomato, arugula, and mozzarella and the other with an herbed pumpkin walnut sauce (instead of tomato sauce), mozzarella, pancetta and basil.  It was a tough decision with the huge menu of unique toppings/combinations, but we will definitely be eating here again and trying many other unique pizzas!

That's it for this food update, but stay tuned for future eats and adventures!

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy, and fun 2012!

Thank you for reading my blog and for all of the encouragement for continuing to post since beginning this project.  I'm planning to have many posts to come for the remaining time we have in Astoria this year so please stay tuned!

-O

Old school hobby shop

Astoria shops offer the full array of stores -- from modern and hip boutiques and organic markets to shops that literally take you back in time as they probably haven't changed in at least 40 years.  Rudy's Hobby & Art Store (35-16 30th Ave) is one of these time capsule shops and is definitely worth a visit! From hundreds of model train sets and parts to kits for building wooden planes, ships, and cars, this store has all the old school hobbies you would want and more (including the standard art supplies and puzzle sets)!  Streaming along the ceiling you'll also find completed model airplanes, which really adds to the atmosphere of the shop.  I can only hope that shops like this one will stick around even as Astoria continues to transform as a neighborhood.

Food Update #7

My parents came to visit last month and we got to try out some new restaurants that I wanted to share with you all as all were delicious and worth checking out!

Zenon Taverna (34-10 31st Ave): This is a wonderful Greek/Cypriot restaurant, which a really nice ambiance and delicious food!  You'll find all of the staple greek dishes and some unique additions from the Cypriot side. J and my mom got the mezedes platter, which was a sampling of  8 cold dishes and 8 hot dishes.  It was SO much food and all very delicious.  My dad and I each got soups (I of course got the greek lemon chicken soup (they call it kotopoulo me rizi at this restaurant) and split a huge kebab platter with many different types of meats/seafood/veggies).  We also of course got some delicious saganaki (fried cheese) that they actually lit on fire at the table, which is unusal in New York!  All in all, a really great place to get Greek/Cypriot food and a place we're sure to eat at again!

Sanfords (30-13 Broadway): This diner is an institution in Astoria as it opened as a coffee shop back in 1922 and has been around ever since!  Today the menu offers more inventive twists to the standard brunch menu and everything was well-made and tasty.  The menu is huge (you can order off the breakfast or brunch menu during brunch times).  One caveat is that it is a small restaurant so the line can be quite long.  We luckily got a table within 15 or 20 minutes, but the hostess informed us that it is often over 1 hour and they're packed between 4am to 6pm.  So plan accordingly but do check out this place!

Tournesol (50-12 Vernon Blvd, LIC): While this is actually located in Long Island City, it is still nearby and such a great french bistro that I had to share!  The ambiance is very intimate and inviting and the food was delicious.  Each dish was prepared perfectly and the atmosphere made for a great dining choice.  Be sure to check this place out if you're in LIC!

Those are the food updates for this roundup, but hopefully I've whet your appetite for the next food update!

Christmas Day Tradition

As tradition goes, Christmas Day for me consists of a movie and chinese food.  This year things didn't go quite as planned as the movie we trekked into Manhattan to see was sold out when we got there ("The Artist" at the Paris Theater).  But we turned around and came back to Astoria to at least follow-through on the dinner portion of the tradition.  We decided to watch a movie at home (to at least keep with some of the movie tradition) so we ordered delivery from a nearby chinese restaurant.  It was our first venture into chinese food in the neighborhood (usually we make the trek to Flushing, Queens which has a huge china town), but I'm happy to report that we now have our chinese go-to place in Astoria!

Fatima's Halal Kitchen Authentic Chinese Cuisine (25-25 Broadway): You can't go wrong with this restaurant -- all of the favorites and more are found on this huge menu.  Plus the meat was very tender and very high quality (which unfortunately isn't always the case with chinese restaurants in nyc).  We had the kung pao chicken and garlic shrimp, both were delicious and very well priced.  We will definitely be back for more from Fatima's, perhaps next time going there for dine-in.

And as for the movie half of the tradition, we watched "A Serious Man," which is a very dark comedy by the Coen brothers (we liked it and thought it was very well-made and interesting).  We'll catch "The Artist" in the coming weeks as well!

Burger madness

Burger joints are, apparently, a popular choice for restaurateurs opening up new places in Astoria.  While I thought we had to be nearing saturation on burger centric restaurants (we have at least four within 5 blocks of our apartment and that excludes all fast food chains), I learned today that a Five Guys Burger & Fries is planning to open in the coming months in Astoria.  While I definitely welcome the restaurant (very tasty burgers) and enjoy all of the other Astoria burger restaurants that I've tried thus far, I do have to stop and wonder... why so many burger joints?!

Christmas decorations, Astorians gets decked for the holidays

While many businesses and apartments get into the Christmas spirit with decorations, I don't think I've seen this many lights on a single building (more than half the balconies are decked out) since moving to New York.  This just happens to be across the street from my apartment so I've watched over the past month as more and more balconies become fully decorated in lights.  We'll see if they have a timely removal after the holidays are over!

My menorah candle lights may not be competing with this quite yet, but by the 8th night it may be a different story!

The corner bakery

I'll get to the post in a second, but first, an apology to my readers for my long lapse in writing.  While I wanted to write posts, life got in the way for the past month (vacation, holidays, etc.).  I'm back though and looking forward to sharing many more observations and experiences from the melting pot!  Here is the first:

One of the many gems of Astoria is the plethora of small bakeries scattered throughout the neighborhood.   Of course, each one caters to their country or origin so we have bakeries that specialize in Italian, Greek, and Turkish delicacies, to name a few.  The one on the corner of our block (Il Fornaio), boasts wonderful homemade pastries and breads (all baked each morning on premise) and while the store itself is very small, the two benches outside are always filled with locals hanging out (sometimes for hours on end).  It's a great local spot and each day when I pass it reminds me how great it is to be an Astorian!

Holidays are coming

Despite the warmer weather this week, Astoria knows the holiday season is around the corner!

Holiday lights along 30th Ave (for as far as the eye can see!)

Food Trucks Galore

Gourmet Food Trucks have become a big fad in the city over the past couple of years.  Starting in July, Queens got its very own food truck lot (43-29 Crescent Street)!  I haven't had the pleasure of visiting it myself yet as they're only open Monday-Friday from 12-3, but lucky for me, most of these trucks frequent the blocks around my office in Manhattan so I still get the opportunity to try them out.  I look forward to venturing over to the parking lot one of these days though to check out this conglomeration of gourmet food trucks!

Socrates Sculpture Park

Socrates Sculpture Park, located at the intersection of Broadway and Vernon Blvd, is an amazing outdoor exhibition space and neighborhood park.  Located along the east river with breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline, the park exhibits rotating large-scale outdoor sculptures and offers many community programs throughout the year (like the Halloween Harvest Festival and a weekly farmer's market).  The park was transformed from a landfill and illegal dump site into its current park and artist space in 1986 and is now a neighborhood institution.

Some pictures below from the current exhibition of emerging artists from the park's artist residency program:

Here's a shot of the farmer's market in full swing:

Snow in October?!

Yes indeed.  An early winter storm graced its presence on the east coast yesterday and we had snow falling all day (albeit a very wet slushy snow).  We got about 2 inches here in Astoria as you can see in the image below. Hopefully this isn't a sign of an early winter and is just a fluke storm!

An afternoon at the Museum of the Moving Image

The Museum of the Moving Image is a definite stop on any Astoria tour.  The museum, which is located at 36-01 35th Ave, is dedicated to all things film, television and visual media.  The permanent collection walks you through the history of the medium and where it stands today with lots of interactive and hands-on components.  For instance, a praxinoscope, which is a series of images placed inside a cylinder that you can spin to see move, arcade games from the 80s, including Frogger(!), and really old TVs where the screen is about the size of an iPad but the body it sits in is as large as a china cabinent!  Times have definitely changed.

In addition to their interesting permanent collection, the museum is currently exhibiting Jim Henson's Fantastic World, which is running until January 16. It's a great exhibition that details the life and creative geniusness of Jim Henson. From doodles to muppets to interesting clips and interviews with Henson, the exhibit gives you a great sense of the man behind the puppets. They also have a 9 minute video that Henson made called Time Piece (only running until November 16), which is a really funny/quirky surrealist short film that Henson made and is a really fun clip to watch.

Be sure to check out the museum next time you are in the area!