We came here around 8:30 PM on a rather cold Saturday evening. Typically there is a long line outside, but today people were crowded and bundled up inside. I put my name down for 2. The wait was approximately 40-50 minutes. We had contemplated leaving when we heard the wait time, but we decided to power through and wait. It was worth it. On July 1, 2023, we visited this restaurant again, and it has moved from it’s previous location.

Astoria has a lot of Mediterranean restaurants and is seldom appealing for its Asian food. However, in the last few months prior the pandemic, there have been several Korean and Chinese/Taiwanese restaurants that were opening, so it’s starting to make a presence. We’ve walked by this neighborhood Japanese sushi joint several times and were surprised about how low key it is. After looking at the menu, we decided to give it a try.

You know what’s one of the great things about Astoria? It’s the excellent Greek seafood restaurants that are within walking distances of each other. We had been to Taverna Kyclades before, but it’s been a while since we’ve dined at their competitors. This was a restaurant that was within walking distance from our Food Bazaar trek on the way back home, so we thought to stop by and give this a try.

This is a place along Ditmars Blvd in Astoria, relatively close to Taverna Kyclades. There is a lot of interesting outdoor setup on this street. The menu itself appears fairly simple, but this place had been highly recommended to us for the easy going vibe. For this COVID environment, the tables are organized north to south along the side street instead of the main street of Ditmars. It definitely felt a little safer.

Astoria in the last few months has seen an uptick on Asian restaurants that aren’t fusion and are more authentic. This one just happens to be on Broadway near my partner’s old neighborhood. We’ve been around this area before going to eat Shanghainese food. Today, it’s for noodles. This was the braised beef tendon. It was marinated in chili oil, garlic, scallions, sesame oil, and other things that I probably missed.

Astoria is not really a place known for having typical Shanghainese food. I always think of it as having more latin and mediterranean influences to those respective demographics in the area. This restaurant though was surprisingly pretty decent for this area. The drunken chicken I normally don’t find in many restsaurants. Here, it’s not as good as my cousin’s or my mother’s version as it’s WAY too salty, chicken pieces don’t appear cut right, and it doesn’t seem like it was marinated well.

This is a very clean sushi spot close to the Broadway subway station off the yellow N and W line. Instead of going all sushi, I decided to mix it up a little with standard Japanese snacks over straight up sushi cut rolls, sorta. The sea snails were cooked in a dashi broth, and were pretty tasty. I think my piece wasn’t cleaned entirely properly because there was some grit, but it tasted ok.

Had the churrasco here, and it was pretty good. The chicken and sausage was good. Make sure the steak is ordered medium rare. We ordered medium, and it came out borderline medium well. The caipirinha was really good too. Get the passion fruit and guava. Avoid the kiwi.

Decent ramen noodles. Soup was a little salty. The egg was disappointing.