Tonight was another venture out to the area around Vernon Blvd. There are so many restaurants here to try. This one here is an Italian restaurant near Gantry park. There are a lot of cars for some reason compared to other parts of Long Island City. The restaurant was able to accommodate us as a pair of walk-ins at around 6:30 PM on a Saturday evening easily. In our second visit, we were able to walk in at 6:30 PM on a Friday evening very easily.

Even though there had been a large number of Asian restaurants in the Long Island City and Astoria vicinity, vietnamese restaurants are still fairly limited. I was kind of craving for some pho since it’s been a few years, and this one was within walkable distance. The city recently allowed 25% dine in, and the reviews for this restaurant seemed fairly decent. The interior was decorated pretty homely, and the tables were spaced decently apart with screen separators.

This is a local neighborhood spot that has plenty of outdoor seating and social distancing. It’s an interesting place in that it’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. The restaurant reminds me a lot of Williamsburg areas in that they take a warehouse and convert it into a nice comforting eatery. We sat in the outdoor patio area which is very airy and has plenty of comfortable space. We saw they had some electric heaters mounted in the roofs of the patio, so it seemed they are prepared for the colder months.

In this pandemic, restaurants are trying all sorts of ways to do outdoor dining. What was interesting about Sapps was that they set up dining tables next door in the front of a mechanic shop but with plenty of distance between tables. They also put out propane powered heat warmers. When you arrive, you can basically choose your own seat, and the waiters will bring the water to you.

In a forever hunt for the best lomo saltado in NYC, this is another place we tried. This restaurant is located near Vernon where all the restaurants are, and it was relatively easy to walk in without reservations. I got the passion fruit juice with water which was basically passion fruit syrup with water and crushed ice. It was pretty good, but it was pretty obvious that you could probably make this at home.

This place is across the street from Food Cellar. It’s nestled in a garage and used to serve a lot of steak dishes. The menu has changed into a more casual patio like experience (I am guessing just for the summer). When we arrived, there was no table service. Instead you have to go to the counter and place your order there. The menus are shown via QRCode. After you place your order, you carry the utensils, dishes, and drinks back to your table.

This is a restaurant from the same people that brought Maiella. Even though that restaurant was modern Italian, this one was more of a modern French. It sits across the park near the Hunters Point library. We came here on a Sunday, prior to the day that New York City had to shutdown dining in restaurants due to the corona virus. Because people weren’t really out and about, the restaurant had many empty tables.

Looking on Yelp, we found that this new Argentine restaurant opened up on Vernon Blvd pretty recently in Long Island City. The menu has a lot of interesting and affordable meat dishes. It’s great that this street is opening a lot of cool restaurants of various cuisines. It appears they have a patio in the back that would be pretty awesome once the weather warms up. I can imagine this place being a super popular hot spot in the foreseeable future.

We continue to explore the neighborhood in Long Island City. This street is littered with all sorts of restaurants, and the recent one that got our interest was this Cuban themed restaurant. We were able to walk in without any reservations on a Friday night around 8 PM. With our meal, we were served bread with a chimichurri variant. The bread was lukewarm and not toasted much at all, but the inside was soft.

Here is another nice neighborhood spot off Vernon Blvd in Long Island City. Reviews seem to rave about how good this neighborhood sushi spot is, so we decided to give it a try. The peach sparkling sake was relatively inexpensive and mighty tasty. The peach flavor tasted artificial, but it was still pretty good. It felt like drinking champagne without the heavy alcohol taste and with that artificial peach sweetener.