Hamido Seafood
We’ve seen this restaurant Hamido Seafood on social media all over the place. Like many Astoria restaurants, they pride themselves in having the freshest seafood, and they are somewhat close to Taverna Kyclades down the street. We went to the original Hamido Seafood restaurant at 4 PM on a Saturday late afternoon, and we were lucky to be seated right away before the crowds came. They are located very close to the N/W train off the Ditmars train stop.
Ambiance & Service
When you enter the restaurant, they ask you to first pick out your seafood, then after you place your order, they will give you a number to bring to your table and seat you. Most of the seafood has a price tag showing how much it costs per pound. They also have live tanks of crab and lobster. If you don’t see anything, you can always feel free to ask them if they have them. Sometimes they don’t put all the seafood on ice for you to see.
The noise level in this restaurant is expected to be quite noisy due to how many families come here for the cheaper seafood. They allow you to bring your own alcohol, and they try to turn over the tables quickly due to the small place.
The service for the seafood came out a little slow. We were picking at our appetizer for a good solid 30 minutes. It was definitely not waiting room full, so I’m unsure what was causing the slow down.
Food
The Homemade Mint Lemonade Juice ($8) was very fresh. It tasted exactly how it looks, where the mint was abundant and mixed well with lemon and ginger.
The Greek Salad ($9.95) came with chopped romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, olives, feta cheese, red vinegar, and olive oil. You really can’t go wrong with greek salads at most of the Mediterranean restaurants in Astoria. The feta cheese was very good and not unnecessarily salty like your normal market feta cheeses.
The complimentary pita bread tasted fairly generic and was served room temperature. This tasted like store bought pita, so nothing special.
The Moussaka ($5.49) was thick sliced roasted eggplants and mild chili pepper marinated in tomato sauce and garlic. This was served room temperature. This was mushy, but my partner really enjoyed this.
The Sardines (5 pieces at $14.30) was served fried. The head was entirely edible, though the body was not. Most of the sardine had plenty of bones, but they were soft enough to chew through and break. The middle bone was definitely not edible, so be careful when eating this.
The Scallops (8 pcs weighing 0.56 pounds at $22.40) was served grilled with butter. I’m constantly reminded about how large scallops appear uncooked, and how small they appear after they are cooked. Nevertheless, the scallops were pretty good, albeit slightly rubbery since they were probably overcooked. They tasted fresh though.
The Jumbo Wild Shrimp (2 pieces weighing 0.88 pounds at $29.83) was served grilled. These were gigantic when you look at them raw. When they serve the cooked grilled shrimps, they probably reduce in size about 50%. The meat though is very dense and somewhat dry and tough. They do lather the shrimp head with a lot of butter and seasoning, so it’s quite delectable. The rest of the shrimp body was meaty, but not that juicy. This was a fun thing to eat, though we probably would stick to smaller sized shrimps next time.
The Wild Sea Bass ($29.83) weighed 1.23 pounds and was served butterflied and grilled. This was also pretty good and fresh. There was no fishiness, even when eating the head or eyeballs. Some parts of it are cooked thoroughly, so that you can eat the bones. They did a good job at cleaning the fish overall, but as always, be careful of the bones.
Final Verdict
Hamido Seafood was a really good seafood place that was physically accessible and affordable. When we dined on this night, they mentioned that they were moving across the street to the 2-story building that was pictured at the beginning of this post. Definitely check this restaurant out if you want to pick out your seafood and have it cooked Greek style no-frills. We’d be happy to come back here again with friends.
Yelp Jabs
It lacked a little salt IMO and wish I asked for some but didn’t want to mess with the food.
I actually thought the seafood was quite flavorful from all the various seasonings they added. Definitely if you’re someone that likes salty foods, then this is probably not as ideal. We were definitely thirsty the following morning, and my partner tends to have a more salty palette than me.
Mint Lemonade - This kind of reminded me of green juice. It definitely felt extremely healthy with fresh ingredients, but I would call this more of a mint lemon juice rather that lemonade which is typically sweeter.
Lemonade is simply lemonade and sugar. And yes, the mint lemonade was perhaps not as sweet as what this Elitist thought it should be, but it definitely was more sweet than lemon juice (aka juice without sweeteners).
Revisions
- Nov 29, 2024 - Initial revision.