Alpha Astoria

Ovelia Day and Night -- 30th Ave and 34th St

2007-06-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

As with many of the establishments reviewed in this blog, there is some question about if Ovelia is a café or a restaurant. On the café side of the argument they serve frappes ($3.50) and had no problem with Brianna nursing one for an hour while waiting for Amy to get done watching All My Children or whatever it is she does to while away the summer wasting our tax dollars. On the restaurant side their menu is distinctly dinner focused. It also seems possible that frappes are only available to those in the know (aka all of you) as Amy did not see them offered on the actual menu. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter (see: Locale) we just review whatever eatery we happen to be at regardless of if it truly qualifies as a Greek Café. Ovelia is at least close enough to shut up all of the readers still pissed off that we reviewed Crescent and Vine.

Ovelia has gone out on a limb with their choice frappe glass choosing to go with a footed hurricane instead of the standard issue wavy tumbler – kudos to you Ovelia for not being afraid to be a rebel (though, obviously, you'll never ever be any good). The frappe itself was only ok – the frothy bit at the top with all of the yummy yummy sugar that makes the beverage worth drinking refused to stir into the watery coffee base perhaps because the two were kept apart by a weird white layer (probably milk, don’t think about it too much). This led to much stirring in vain and alternating too sweet/too bitter mouthfuls.

After Brianna had finished her frappe, Amy finally arrived and the real reviewing could begin. We noticed a strange Greek Café decorating aesthetic that Ovelia works hard to live up to. The general goal seems to be a homage to the girls of reality TV much like they are boring pretty (every part of them perfectly emulating our society's beauty ideals and yet somehow the whole package never resulting in anything special) the cafes seem to be striving for institutionally modern. The whole look feels like Walmart does Frank Lloyd Wright. Looking around, we counted… brace yourselves… six (6) different types of lighting fixtures. Directly above our heads were hanging lamps that had napkins dangling from them as diffusers. Towards the back there were hanging lamps with different napkins that were more translucent. Above the bar were adorable lights that looked like perhaps they were cut from bud vases- pretty. And then, spaced seemingly at random throughout the cafe were at least three different types of track lighting. Despite all of the lights, it just didn’t seem all that well lit. Not that it was dark, but it was decidedly romantic (we almost made out like 4 times). Against the far wall was a jungle of sorts created by a large gathering of plants, and emphasized by leafy wallpaper. Then finally, in the back of the café is a raised area where there is additional seating. This raised area was home to three vases containing flame tornados. If you live in the Astoria area you should personally thank the owner of Ovelia for restraining these evil tools of Satan in glass prisons protecting your home from a fiery death. We can only hope that the sprites and demons who roam this fair land do not creep into the café late one night and release upon us these cyclones of death.

The cafe has two unisex bathrooms each with large VERY heavy tempered glass doors which may be see through in the right light (which, obviously this place should have – but it doesn't). The bathrooms themselves are strangely fancy with sinks carved from boulders and a number of high tech appliances ready to automatically do their electronic thing for you. We had to wonder (for at least 30 minutes, in fact, the majority of our dinner conversation centered on the bathroom topic – classy, we know) exactly why a café would spend so much money on a fancy loo. Is this at all likely to create a buzz about the place – was anyone out there on the fence about this establishment but now totally scheduling a visit due to the promise of an awesome peeing experience?

We had decided on a trio of mezze instead of an actual meal. After much discussion, it was settled that we would get grilled calamari in a tomato and wine sauce ($11), zucchini croquettes ($9) and garlic potato dip ($6). The garlic and potato dip as well as the calamari both had Greek names, but we didn’t write them down, and therefore feel no need to even try to post them here (see header re: NOT Greek, know next to nothing about Greek food, culture, language, etc). The calamari was very tender, though Amy found it dry at
times. The sauce was good, but somewhat bland- it could have used more spice. Brianna found the croquettes to be the stand out of the evening. They were light (despite being deep fried) and fresh tasting, and the dipping marinara was a nice compliment. Neither of us was particularly impressed by the potato dip—Brianna was convinced that it was made out of raw potato and Amy found the garlic overpowering. However, the very nice and attentive in a non-pressure-y way waitress offered us extra (warm) pita bread after we finished our first batch, and we gratefully accepted. Brianna also ordered the house sakitini ($8) which included sake, muddled cucumber and sugar and was fabulously refreshing. In a nod to her Mormon sisters (Free Margene!) Amy refused all caffeinated and alcoholic beverages. After inquiring about the large glass jar on the window sill behind the bar we found out that the best drink of the house is likely the Ovelia sikatini which contains fig infused brandy made on site. Just as we assumed our night was drawing to a close, we got a really nice surprise—the (again, very nice) waitress asked if we would be interested in dessert—on the house. The answer is OF COURSE we want free dessert (whew- maybe writing this blog is finally beginning to pay off). A note to our regular readership: we suggest you take a moment here to thank Zeus that this review is not paragraphs and paragraphs of us screeching “OH MY GOD!!!! WE GOT FREE STUFF!!!” Unfortunately, we don’t think that Alpha Astoria is so famous that the Greek Cafes of Astoria are on a lookout for us. It’s much more likely that a) they noticed us taking pictures and writing notes, and decided it’s better to be safe and offer free shit than get a poor review in the New York Times (do *you* know what their reviewer looks like? I think not.) or b) they give free desserts to everyone and we are not special at all. The dessert (to get back to reviewing) was the Round Things Soaked in Honey that we reviewed way back in the day at Athens Café. We liked them a lot at Ovelia—they were much less dense than the Honey Soaked Round Things we’ve had in the past, and there was a lot less honey and they had a sprinkling of cinnamon which made them deliciously reminiscent of fried dough products that you would get at carnivals and fairs. So, in addition to being FREE they were also quite good, and brought back happy memories.

The patronage at Ovelia was younger than that at other cafes and notably less Greek. There was also no smoking, which though a state law, is not always one that is honored at Astorian establishments. The mostly female (and quite attractive) wait-staff was primarily of Greek descent (as far as we could tell) and our waitress looked surprisingly like Justine Bateman (the internet claims the name is Saxon in origin so, sadly, Justine is likely not Greek). The (also attractive) table-staff was mainly Hispanic. Ultimately, everyone in the restaurant, including us of course, was damn good looking.

Food: 3.5
Service: 4.5
Ambiance: 3
Staff Attractiveness: 4.5
Patron Attractiveness: 4.5

Crescent and Vine -- Ditmars and Crescent

2007-05-26T12:35:00.000-04:00

Hey remember when we claimed we were back but then we didn’t actually post anything for over a month? Good times. On with the Cafeing! And yes, in our world, cafe is a verb.

This is the Outback Steak House of blogs (No rules. Just right. Not at all representative of the culture our product is based on.). In that spirit we have chosen to review not one of the remaining Greek Cafes on our list but instead focus on the newest Astoria bar, Crescent and Vine. I assure all readers that this was a difficult decision as we had originally planned to go to Cavo where there may be a tree growing out of the wall but we were eventually won over by the proximity of Crescent and Vine to Brianna’s apartment (Like everything in Astoria, the bar is far away from Amy’s apartment since she has recently relocated to fancy new digs in Jackson Heights. This move in no way effects her willingness to bestow uneducated judgment on eating establishments in Astoria. On that note, allegedly Mr. Amy is going to start his own blog about street-vendors in Jackson Heights. We'll keep you updated). Also, Crescent and Vine promised us booze.

At first this place felt very hip. While we felt totally Greek enough to be there (first time ever) we did risk being escorted out for being “too old,” “too lame,” "tragically unhip," and “not wearing any retro 70s clothing items.” Once we settled into our seats -- located in the front on a raised stage, right by the windows, as is appropriate for VIPs like us– and spent a good 10mins surveying the room we realized that the other patrons were actually an eclectic mix of 24 year old hipsters and 45 year old guys pregnant with beer baby triplets. Turns out we were young enough and hot enough to be sitting in the best seats in the house. Score! We gave the bar +5 for that nice surprise, though this observation did make judging "patron attractiveness" rather complicated (see below).

The bartender manning the bottles when we arrived was attentive and friendly, it also helped that (at least in the dim light) he was adorable. After sitting down we were repeatedly checked on by a guy in a beret who was also helpful and nice (though the beret made it all but impossible to call him cute -- seriously, who wears a beret?). It took us a good 30 minutes to confirm that he was a bar employee and not just an overly interested customer. We got our menu from the bar, and placed our order at the bar, and the food was delivered quickly and nicely to our table. All the employees were incredibly attentive and helpful, which may have been a "first week open- yay!" kind of service, but hopefully they will be able to maintain.

Both of us have been in a wine club for a year and half now so you’d think we’d be well versed in judging wines, but the club focuses more on getting drunk and gossiping than actually learning about wine, so you’d be wrong. That said, Crescent and Vine totally delivered on the getting drunk and gossiping portion of the evening – we were quite successful at both. We started the evening with two glasses of red wine though for a place with “vine” in its name Crescent and Vine has very few wines on the menu. We’re hoping that they have some sort of interesting monthly rotation scheme planned but even if they don’t Brianna could drink the Angeline Pinot Noir every night for the rest of her life (well, if she could afford it, the wine is a pricey $11/glass. For that money she could buy a bottle of cheap champagne and drink in her underwear at home while watching The Girls Next Door like God intended). Amy had the DM Guscon Malbac, a variety of wine she is wholly unfamiliar with. It smelled good, and kind of oaky, and drank very smoothly, though didn't have many distingushing flavors. So it was easy to drink (good!), but didn't taste like much (bad). If you're looking to get drunk without flavor, Malbac seems to be the way to go. Or else, Amy has a very undistingished palate, which she fully admits is possible. We tried to order a second round of the Pinot Noir but obviously other patrons had noticed that Brianna was drinking it and the subsequent rush to follow her lead resulted in the bar running out of this wine. We instead took the bartenders recommendation on reds and ended up paying $14/glass for a wine whose name we forgot to write down. Though the wines were pricey, you got a little more than a glass out of each of them because they were decanted into a small carafe. It turns out to be around 2 properly filled wine glasses or 1 1/4 bar filled wine glasses.

For "dinner", we ordered a bunch of salted pork products and cheese – in a nod to our heart health the good people at Crescent and Vine gave us some free apples slices with our order which we laughed at between burps. Our plate of fatty goodness included salami, prosciutto, salsiccia, goat cheese, stilton, manchego and romano (we forgot to write down the actual names of the cheeses because we are way out of practice when it comes to reviewing resturants.). The cheeses were all stealer and the salsiccia (a cured product we had never had before) was a big win, it tasted a bit like soprasata without with the spice. The prosciutto was a bit tough and overly thick and the salami was fairly boring – we recommend that Crescent and Vine consider sourcing their meats from nearby Rosarrio’s where the pork is always palatable. We also ordered a plate of bruscetta which supposedly had white balsamic vinegar on it – either white balsamic vinegar is actually brown or the menu lied or they ran out and substituted standard issue brown balsamic, either way it was yummy-- Amy thought it was the stand out of the evening.

Both of us had no luck racking our brains trying to remember what deli or dentist office or subpar pizza place occupied the space before this little bar moved into town, and the décor doesn’t give much away in terms of the buildings origin. There are rumors that it is owned by the same folks that own Fatty's Cafe next door, though that has not been confirmed. We’re also not sure if the brassy tin roof is authentic or not but we covet it either way. The also served all of our food on unmatched plates that made Brianna jealous of the thrift store scavenging skills of whoever outfitted Crescent and Vine with dishes. Before you read this next sentence we’d like to admit that it is possible that we are about to seem old and uncool, we’re pretty much ok with that. The music was too loud. This seems to be a running complaint about many places we've reviewed. Trust us, we know it’s a bar, and we know that bars play loud music so that people will not be able to talk and thus will focus on drinking more and then have to buy more drinks... but we had gossip to cover! It’s not like Crescent and Vine has any ambitions of becoming a club so it seems like the music could be a little quieter, you’ll make up for the lost drink costs by charging $14 for a glass of wine.

Food: 4
Service: 5
Ambiance: 4.5
Staff Attractiveness: 4
Patron Attractiveness: 4/2

We're Back!

2007-04-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

Did we fail to mention that this blog was seasonal? During the winter months we tend to be very very busy avoiding the outdoors and bitching about how cold we are – there is no time for cafeing and we have to limit our catty comments to the confines of our living rooms (something that café owners might enjoy but the bad karma effect felt by wannabe Top Models is so strong that some of them may even forget how to be fierce (and when we say some we specifically mean Jael). Much like the pathetically unspring-y weather we are easing into things – so no, we didn’t actually leave the house and review a café… but when gmail notified us of a very upset reader (take a look at the Omonia Café review) we thought about going to cafe! We thought about it so much that we decided to take a look at our to-do list.

Done
Athens Cafe -- 30th and 32nd
Omonia Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd
Kolonaki Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd
Lefkos Pyrgos -- 23rd Ave at 31st
Zodiac -- 31st and Newtown
Byzantine -- 31st and Newtown
Park Kafe -- 30th and 30th
Wassi Coffee Lounge -- 28th and 37th
Avenue Cafe -- 30th and 36th
Locale -- 34th and 33rd
Plaza Cafe -- 30th and 29th
Grand Cafe -- 30th and 37th
Galaxy -- 30th and 37th
Flo -- 30th and 38th
Cafe Bar -- 36th and 32nd

To Do
Cavo Cafe -- 31st and 42nd
Elite- 28th and 32nd

Defunct Before We Could Review Them
(probably due to lack of advertisement on this site)
Santorini -- Steinways and ??

Dudes! Only two left? I’m sure this is woefully out of date… so help us dear readers, what new cafés opened up during our months of hibernation?

Cafe Bar -- 34th Ave and 36th St

2006-11-19T15:57:00.000-05:00

(Update: Somehow this post was screwing up our side bar in IE, after waaaaaay too many hours editing and republishing the only solution we found was to remove all pictures and links -- and we're too lazy to put them all back in.)

Before we begin, a few notes:

Things Brianna is an expert on
Cowboys
Ice Cream
Jcrew Online Sale

Things Amy is an expert on
Anne of Green Gables
Back scratching (literal and figurative) (Mr. Amy's back, Brianna's back
Finding Free Bathrooms in NYC

Things neither of us are experts on but we totally form opinions on anyway
Cafes
Greek Cafes
Frappes

We include these lists because it appears that a few of our readers have been taking our cafe reviews rather seriously. While it is our goal to convince rich media moguls that we are totally qualified to get paid to review food (or clothing or booze or really anything, we have lots and lots of uneducated opinions that are totally for sale) we must admit that we have no authority what so ever. Frankly, this review doesn't mean much.

That said....

Cafe Bar is much trendier (as in hipster-ish, not as in European) than most of the other places that we have reviewed (except maybe Locale). This outdoor shot doesn't really do the place justice -- drive by on a summer evening and you can fully enjoy the neon lights, psuedo-stained glass and the pretty outdoor seating area. We visited on a cold November afternoon so had to sit inside (though, obviously since we are cold hearted snakes (look into our eyes!) we would probably have to sit inside even on a hot July morning.).

Walking into Cafe Bar, you can imagine that they spent many, many hours scouring the city's most desirable streets on garbage day for cool and interesting furniture and accessories to decorate the interior with. It's very eclectic in a funky/retro kind of way. It's your grandmother's house circa 1973 if your grandmother was a rocker. Amy felt it had a similar design aesthetic to Sparrow Bar (but with better lighting). The place is also filled with plants and comfy couches both of which add to the funky yet home vibe (ok, your grandmother plays tambourine in a Grateful Dead cover band because she's boinking the fake Jerry).

Their menu was very Greek inspired (arguably more so than cafes that had more of a Greek feel), including a "Cyrpiot Breakfast", lots of Greek cheese with hummus and other mezzos, and of course, freddo lattes. There was also an extensive menu of international (aka boozy) coffees, fresh squeezed juices, yerba matte tea and an "Oriental Dim Sum" plate (with samosas and potstickers). It was our first(second?) Sunday review, and so we took the opportunity to try their extensive brunch menu. Cafe Bar has two brunch menus- an "everyday" brunch menu served from 11am-5pm daily (which is a nice feature. (hijack) About a month ago Amy, Brianna and Mr. Amy decided to go to Dillinger's for brunch on a Saturday, to discover that they ONLY serve brunch on Sunday. So we went to instead Le San Souci, which is very yummy and highly recommended - See? Opinions to spare. Review in a review- for free!- If we had gone to Cafe Bar though, this would not have been an issue. (end hijack)). The second brunch menu is their "weekend" brunch menu, which is also served from 11am to 5pm, but on weekends only (duh).

Amy ordered multi-grain blueberry pancakes with strawberry butter ($9) and a coffee ($2) (no free coffee with brunch? don't you people know what brunch is?!?! This is *America* we should get some coffee AND free alcohol). Brianna ordered scrambled eggs with tomato and feta ($9) and a latte ($4) (seriously? $4? Lame.). Amy felt the strawberry butter tasted vaguely medicinal, which is too bad since it looked and sounded so yummy-- Brianna tasted it and thought it tasted like butter which beats medicine but still isn't as exciting as it seems like strawberry butter should be. The cup that Amy's coffee came in was disintegrating right before our eyes -- little pieces of ceramic kept falling off and we assume that luck alone protected Amy's lap from a nasty burn (and sadly now we cannot sue for millions of dollars -- cruel cruel luck.). Brianna's scrambled eggs came with a side of country potatoes with asparagus -- adding asparagus to breakfast potatoes may sound weird but it tasted amazing: highly recommended.

Our server was fairly attractive (and a boy! most of our male servers to date havn't been able to complete with the extremely cute girls out waiting tables in Astoria -- Congrats Mr. Cafe Bar!) and made a point to kneel down to our level (we sat on a couch) when taking our order. He was getting high service points until we waiting about 20mins for our bill to arrive. The other wait staff was decidedly more average looking but the patron eye-candy made up for that. It's a good thing Brianna and Amy are VERY good looking or they may have asked us to leave.

Awesome Astoria Activity
(yes, we know this section is about as successful as The Daily Show's stupid "Seat of Heat" but when we make a mistake we commit to it!) You could go hiking, in the city!
Food: 3.5
Service: 3.5
Ambiance: 4.5
Staff Attractiveness: 4
Patron Attractiveness: 4.5

Flo- 30th Avenue and 38th Street

2006-10-30T20:47:00.000-05:00

Why is the name of this cafe spelled incoherently (unless the accent means something)? The word "Flo" only works in two contexts:

1. "Kiss my grits," said Flo as she turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen to demand a raise from Mel
2. Aunt Flo better show up soon or we'll be buying diapers.

Both of these are inappropriate when discussing Astoria cafes (sadly in the case of the former, thankfully in the case of the latter). We assume that this cafe should be named "Flow" though we're unsure exactly what is flowing.

For some reason Brianna didn't expect Flo cafe to be as tacky as other Astoria cafes, from the outside it looks kind of innocuous and unassuming (almost like the building used to be a Jamba Juice -- much like Lefkos Pirgos used to be a white castle). Luckily, inside Flo is as just as euro-trashy as any other cafe (seriously people- don't even bother to comment about how ethnically insensitive we are, there is no way to defend multicolored glowing walls.). We were able to sit outside thanks to the presence of powerful heat lamps (one of the great ironies of the cafe scene for us is that we can sit outside in October but not in June) which made for a more authentic people watching experience (Brianna saw a 17 year old boy in a black fur coat -- it's hard to top that).

Flo has a fairly tiny menu of coffees, sandwiches and a few desserts along with a fairly extensive list of cocktails, (all $9) wines and martinis (all $10) -- including a cocktail temptingly dubbed "B.O." which contains sugar, orange, Bacardi O, 7up and orange juice -- all of which one would think would smell nothing like human sweat.

Their menu is heavy on the pork loin which you can get at least 4 different ways -- Brianna felt that this was a sign that pork loin was some sort of house specialty so she ordered the pork loin sandwich ($8.50). Amy is boring so she ordered a BLT ($5.50 -- cheap!). Both sandwiches came with potato chips (seemed like Ruffles) which was a little odd, but we enjoyed the excuse to consume fried, salted food in the place of vegetables.

At first Brianna was very impressed with the pork sandwich (the pita it came on was really fresh and the sandwich had a yummy olive tapanade spread on it) but the more she ate the more boring it seemed -- there was a lot of meat and (perhaps
influenced by an over consumption of potato chips) she was wishing for some greenery. Amy's BLT had a plethora of iceberg lettuce, which she thinned out a bit, and an extraneous piece of bread separating the bacon from the lettuce/tomato layer (thus avoiding a meat vs. vegetation war -- bacon HATES lettuce). The bacon was nicely cooked and a little smoky, and the sandwich was yummy and tasty in its simplicity (that's Amy for "boring," she just won't admit it).

No frappes were consumed by us at Flo, but after dinner we did decide to have seasonally appropriate drinks (Amy suggested we could get free espresso at her house-- one of the perks of being married is a beautiful new espresso maker--but that seems to defeat the purpose of this entire project). Amy had hot chocolate ($4.50) and Brianna a cappuccino Viennese (= with whipped cream, $4). The hot chocolate was described as "pure chocolate", so Amy was expecting something like she would get at City Bakery (if you haven't tried their hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows you should stop by next time you're in the Flatiron), but it was less dense than that-- and in Amy's opinion better. It came with a single marshmallow on a spoon. For the first hot chocolate of the season, it was a treat. The cappuccino was so-so -- the whipped cream was obviously from a can which was a little disappointing and it covered up any foam (in Bri's opinion the best part of a cappuccino). The cappuccino also came with a small chocolate chip cookie on the side.

We were seated by a cute Greek waitress, but all other server interaction was with a cute non-Greek waitress. The second waitress was *extremely* attentive -- after she took our order she stopped by to make sure we didn't need anything else, then after we got our food she stopped by see if it was ok, then 10 mins later she came by again to check if we needed anything else. Then, between dinner and coffee, she spent a long time making sure our table was very clean. Our huge egos almost had us believing that this website had finally come through and made us famous, but then they brought us a regular check with no discount. We're pretty sure once we're famous we'll get free food. But if when you go there you don't get exemplary service, perhaps you should start a blog reviewing cafes in Astoria.

Awesome Astoria Activity:

Once you finish your frappee, you can burn off those unwanted pounds at the NYSC! (sorry, it was dark out and the picture isn't very clear)

Ambiance: 3
Patron Attractiveness: 2.5
Server Attractiveness: 3
Food: 2.5
Service: 3.5 (though bordering on stalker-ish)

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

2006-10-15T10:39:00.000-04:00

There have been some changes afoot in the Astoria café scene.

It seems Lefkos Pirgos is doing some renovating. Rapture on astorians.com took this picture without being attacked by any old ladies (we hope your luck has held and no evil curse has since manifested itself). A few changes to the décor that we’d like to see:

An even fancier cake stand (perhaps with the addition of some neon lights and fog)

A make-over for Old Mrs. Grumpy Pants (maybe looking good would make her feel good too).

Signage clarifying the “ok to photograph” areas in the café.

Byzantio is no more. One assumes their ongoing battle with Zodiac to be the top café on the corner of 31^st St and 28^th Ave was finally lost when we stopped by and proved that yes, American girls are bitches. We’re sorry Byzantio. On the other hand: Congratz to Zodiac, you’re number 1!!!!!.

Santorini Café on Steinway has closed which we are all for because we have never been there and this make one less café we have to review (though, realistically another café will likely pop-up in it’s place thus brining us back to even).

An update on our future:

Done
Athens Cafe -- 30th and 32nd
Omonia Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd
Kolonaki Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd
Zodiac -- 31st and Newtown
Byzantio -- 31st and Newtown
Lefkos Pirgos -- 23rd Ave at 31st
Park Kafe -- 30th and 30th
Wassi Coffee Lounge -- 28th and 37th
Plaza Cafe -- 30th and 29th
Grand Cafe -- 30th and 37th
Avenue Cafe -- 30th and 36^th
Santorini -- Steinways and ?? (no longer exists= done to us!)
Galaxy -- 30th and 37th
Locale -- 34th and 33rd

To Do
Cafe Bar -- 36th and 32nd
Cavo Cafe -- 31st and 42nd
Flo, -- 38th and 30th ave
Elite- 28th and 32nd

Yes ladies and gentlemen, you read that right. Only four cafes left on our once grandiose list. The end is in sight-- though our summer goal may have come and gone, rumor has it that we might be done before winter officially starts!

Galaxy Café -- 30th and 37th

2006-10-02T22:29:00.000-04:00

Two posts in one week! Surprise! Out of guilt for going so long without a post and in anticipation of being huge slackers we went to TWO cafes last Tuesday night. After dinner at Grand Café (which has a new ridiculously large advertisement at the Ditmars’ subway station) we walked the 50 feet over to Galaxy Café for dessert. 30^th Avenue in the mid 30s is so flush with cafés that we could have continued this pattern until we collapsed from over consumption. It’s possible that even 2 café’s in one evening was a bit too much for us, by the time we reached Galaxy we had to talk ourselves http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.photo.gif
Add Imageinto wanting dessert.

Galaxy is tiny and much cozier than most of the other Astoria cafes. There were no crazy lit up bars or walls or unifying themes. The décor kind of reminded us of a (generic) grandmother’s house—a cozy couch, wallpaper of questionable taste and dim (but not dark), non-overhead lighting (though there were some recessed track lights in the ceiling). The most impressive decorative touch at Galaxy is the cool vintage cigarette machine located near the bathrooms – it even sold cigarette varieties that seem to have fallen out of regular circulation – it’s almost too bad we don’t smoke. There seemed to be some kind of back seating area as well, but at least on Tuesday evening, most of the customers were located either outside or in the front section of the café.

It doesn’t seem like Galaxy has a kitchen so we assumed that the food options were of the honey soaked variety only however on her trip to the bathroom Brianna noticed that someone was getting some French fries – but it seems likely that these were ordered from outside for employees only, we certainly did not notice a menu.

We are big fans of local recommendations especially when faced with unfamiliar pastry options (though it could obviously be argued that five months in to this challenge we should be Greek dessert experts) so we asked the waitress at Galaxy to recommend a dessert. The waitress was surprisingly unwilling to help us with our decision claiming that she can’t recommend anything because she doesn’t know what we like. We felt a bit snubbed by this and started suspecting that the waitress didn’t really like us. They had a sizable variety of the typical Greek and non-Greek desserts we’ve seen in our travels, including cheesecake, chocolate moose cake, those little cakes shaped like mice, and unknown things wrapped in pretty foil. We eventually settled on the philo dough, honey, walnuts and cinnamon connection. Though very pretty, the pastry was incredibly stale, so much so that we couldn’t get past more then a few bites.

As we go to the dessert-focused cafes, we have noticed a repetition of desserts, and are beginning to suspect that they are not—gasp—made on location. This asks the question: where are these delectable looking concoctions concocted? Is one of the cafés supplying the others? Do the Greek desserts and the non Greek desserts come from separate sources? Is the supplier outside of Astoria?? Another mystery….

When we went up to the counter to pay our bill the total came to $3.75 and Amy paid with four dollar bills – this is when the waitress’ dislike for us became most obvious – and got back 5 nickles. NICKLES. In a city that lives on quarters! If you see Amy on the street and she seems rather stinky you’ll know that she was unable to do her laundry due to the cruelty of the waitress at Galaxy.

Patron Attractiveness: 2.5

Staff Attractiveness: 2.5

Food: 1.5

Atmosphere: 3

Service 2.5

Grand Cafe -- 30th Ave and 36th St

2006-09-26T21:37:00.000-04:00

Grand Café is the Café that sort of inspired this blog (well for Brianna at least) – it’s surprising that it has taken us so long to review it. Brianna will admit that she’s mostly just a sucker for the cute clock above the door. Once inside we found out they also have a huge salt water fish tank, another thing Brianna is a sucker for. Unfortunately the rest of the interior is vaguely tacky and the music a bit too loud.

The menu is eclectic, though probably no more so than most of the other Greek café that we’ve reviewed. The menu does contain some surprising options:

Nacho Supreme: We long ago gave up on Greek Café’s serving mainly Greek food (Grand does not serve gyros or solvaki or any of the other stereotypical Greek fare) but nachos? Brianna is a huge Mexican food snob and doesn’t really trust anything Mexican East of the Mississippi but even Amy wouldn’t trust the Greek version of Nachos

Tropical Rage Smothy (no that is not our misspelling -- shocking, we know.) (available in Strawberry Extreme, Orange Crème and… Tropical Rage (“I’d like a Tropical Rage Tropical Rage”, “Give me a double Tropical Rage”, “Trop Rage to the second power!”)): Are the tropics very very angry with us or is tropical just a very popular fad?

We were once again impressed with the glassware – the waiter brought us a huge bottle of water in this adorable bottle. The Frappes ($3.75 – just as sweet and milky as we like them) were served in the traditional Greek Frappe glass. We’re still wondering why everyone has the same glasses and where they’re buying them (they are NOT buying them in Greece where frappes are served in a wide variety of different glasses).

Amy ordered French toast ($6.50)(which is so nice that they’ve chosen to list it on the menu twice…) and Brianna ordered a Cobb Salad ($12 – wtf?). Both meals were served on cheery yellow fiesta-wear-like plate which probably bought them an extra .5 points. The French toast was served with an adorable teeny glass bottle of syrup, and topped with a few decorative strawberries. All in all, it was a pleasing aesthetic and culinary experience. The French toast was just the thing to put Amy in the mood for a Sunday brunch at Grand Café (until 4) sometime soon (no word on if they offer free booze as all good brunch places should). Fried carbohydrates covered in syrup top Amy’s list of favorite foods, and this did not disappoint with thick slices of bread toasted to a golden perfection. Brianna’s salad had a wide variety of greens, some perfectly ripe avocado slices, yummy grilled chicken, a ton of olives (way too many in Brianna’s opinion, perhaps this is the Greek touch) and mystery salad dressing (they said it would be blue cheese and it defiantly was not. It was also not ranch.).

Service was relatively good though it did take them forever to bring us the check. All of the waiters appeared to be male, something we can’t recall noting anywhere else. All of the boys were cute enough, though not as stunning as the girls in many of the other cafes.

Overall Grand Cafe was a solid experience but not really a stand out. We were happy enough with our meal but in the end their scores turned out to be just so-so. If you’re in the neighborhood, go ahead and check it out (if you’re not distracted by the 8 million other café’s that seem to occupy café-row near 30th and Steinway).

Patron Attractiveness: 3.5
Staff Attractiveness: 3
Food: 3.5
Ambiance: 3.5
Service: 3.5

Plaza Lounge 30th Dr and 29th St

2006-08-16T13:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry for our extended absence, Amy had to go off and get married. While she was gone Brianna was supposed to review with a guest, but she couldn’t bear to drink a frappe without her lovely partner in caffeine consumption.

Because marriage means pretending that you care about the other person’s activities, we were joined on this review by Amy’s husband (!!! Excuse Brianna while she takes a moment to remind herself that 28 isn’t really that old… right?).

Plaza Lounge is cute enough but given the high cuteness bar set by so many of the Greek café’s (shout out to Park Café and Athens’s Café) the décor didn’t really excel. The open windows and cushy couches are welcoming but not very distinctive given how many other places offer the same amenities. We deemed it warm enough to sit outside (even though Amy was a little chilly by the end of the night), and though nice, the bus stop right in front of the store makes it a little loud, though ultimately probably not any louder than other café’s on 30th Avenue.

The menu is your standard Astoria café huge, and more continental (that other continent to our east…) than Greek. The have a wide selection of creative booze options including about 12 different flavored mojito options ($9 each) and a whole section devoted to various flavored “mysteries” (“a raspberry mystery” seems like the name of an exclusive whore house…). We really should have ordered one of these just to clear up the… mystery but alas we did not – bonus points to the reader who can help us out. Frappes did not appear on the menu but have no fear, the waitress was happy to bring us a couple after we inquired after them.

The frappes ($4 each) were less sweet then we’re used to, which Brianna found refreshing however they were also a bit watery. Amy’s ball and chain ordered an iced tea ($3.50), which was surprisingly frothy. He said it tasted like powdered iced tea mix, and was very sweet--which he considered a negative (this from a boy who used to buy powdered iced team mix in one gallon containers during college, and occasionally eat the mix straight). Luckily the disappointing beverage lead to some high quality reminiscing about the time in college when Brianna ran out of mixers and tried to stir iced tea mix directly into a glass of rum (surprisingly yummy!).

For dinner Brianna ordered a tuna sandwich ($8), Amy a prosciutto sandwich ($8) and Mr. Amy a Caribbean chicken wrap ($8). The tuna was the European style with olive oil instead of mayo, capers, sun dried tomatoes and a slice of ripe tomato (shout out to the month of August!). The sandwich stand out was the bread, which was fresh and crusty and lightly toasted. The sandwich itself was perhaps a bit dry but the capers and sun-dried tomatoes were incredibly yummy. Amy’s sandwich arrived stuffed with chicken instead of prosciutto, but the wait staff was very gracious in taking it back and bringing the correct sandwich, and in a timely manner (or maybe it just seemed fast in comparison to the eons that we waited for sandwiches after ordering them). Amy felt that the Parmesan was a little overwhelming on her sandwich, but it was tasty, and not too much to eat in a sitting, unlike Brianna’s sandwich—she got half of it wrapped to go. There was some concern that the Caribbean wrap would be a little dry, but the chicken was very moist and the avocado perfectly ripe.

Awesome Astoria Activity:

Plaza Café seemed to have had a Jagermeister party last week. Awesome enough.

Food: 3.5
Service: 4
Ambiance: 3.5
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 4
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 3.5

Locale- 34th Avenue and 33rd Street

2006-07-17T12:12:00.000-04:00

For our first review with guests we choose Local because our friend S knows one of the Locale waitresses -- we also dragged along Brianna’s friend H who was visiting from San Francisco. Before we begin this review a quick list of everything we ordered: a local martini, an iced cappuccino, an iced coffee, 2 lemon mojitos, arguala salad with grilled pears, orchita piccante, gnocchi with fresh tomato sauce, chicken limon, prochito panini, sorbet ice cream bomb, tiramisu. All of which makes a couple of obvious points:

We are huge pigs.
This is not a greek café.

Locale is an Italian restaurant (despite the sign outside that declares "cafe/bar"). They have a ton of light pasta options, a very pretty looking dessert list and some impressive alcoholic beverage options. If Astoria is able to sustain Locale we predict that your rent will be going up in about a year. This is one of the new Park Slope-ish venues that have been cropping up in the neighborhood (Wave Thai, Brick, etc…) and while we’re ever so happy to have snazzy dining options opening up we can’t help but feel a little like Astoria is finally being discovered by the hipster masses and we may be left behind (unless we get raptured).

The first sign that you’re not (metaphorically) in Queens anymore is Locale’s décor. They have potted bamboo lining the outside-seating boarder. They have exposed brick walls and cloth wallpaper. They have art on the walls. Then to top it all off, while we realize that for whatever reason we’re a little obsessed with the lighting in the café’s we visit, Locale has taken over the Awesome Lighting crown. A special lighting shout-out goes to the wagon wheel-like hanging lights with exposed bulbs (You light up my life wagon wheel light! I love you! Woohoo!!! Lights rule 4-eva!!!!). We sat outside for the first time (finally we’re able to overcome our cold-bloodedness and jump into the authentic café experience and we’re not even at a greek café!) which was quite pleasant – the street is tree lined, but Locale’s corner is busy enough to provide you with plenty of people watching.

Brianna considered the lack of frappes on the a menu a sign that God wanted her to have some booze (just following the master in and effort to get to heaven people) so she started with a locale martini ($10). This has to be one of the prettiest drinks available in Astoria – it had a deep purple hue and a cute orchid blossom perched on the edge of the glass (and martini glasses are pretty even when empty so that helped too). H ordered an iced cappuccino ($3.75) and pronounced it "mild without being boring" and "having the proper amount of foam" – she’s much more serious about the review process then we are (newbie.). Amy and S had lemon mojitos ($9) which might even be an improvement on the traditional they were tart and minty and oh-so refreshing.

Ordering food proved to be a chore, partly because the menu was huge and partly because the cute-ish (in a nerdy hipster “my band is modeled on They Might Be Giants” sort of way) waiter would not leave us alone to swim in the complicated pros and cons which must be weighed when considering 15 different plates of pasta (Spicy? Creamy? Fungi?), and of course photograph everything that was currently on the table. He wasn’t really pushy-- just overly present – perhaps he just started waiting tables and is a bit too much of an eager beaver. Finally the pressure of being asked if we had decided yet once every 30 seconds got to us and Bri, Amy, H and S order orchieta ($12.50), gnocchi ($13.50), chicken (13.95) and Panini ($9.50) respectively, with a lovely tri-colore salad to share.

By the time we got the dessert menu (!!??) we were full and happy. However, the pictures were so pretty, that we couldn't resist. Between the four of us, we decided to split two desserts-- the "Exotic Bamba" ($6) and Tiramisu ($6). The Exotic Bamba is a delicious concoction of three kinds of sorbet: mango, a tasty unidentified flavor, and berry. Then this ball of yumminess is covered with a white-chocolate shell. Everyone liked this one. Amy felt that the tiramisu was too dry and not sweet enough, though Brianna liked those very qualities. S and H split down the party lines, and the tiramisu didn't get finished that night.

Awesome Astoria Activities:

We actually don't have any. The grocery across the street didn't seem to quite fit the bill. Turns out 34th Avenue is a pretty quiet street these days. However, we do suggest the nearby Museum of the Moving Image. It's one of our favorite places to spend an afternoon.

Food: 4
Service: 3
Ambiance: 4.5
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 4 (there's an extra .5 in there for the waitress we know)
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 4

Avenue Café – 30th Ave and 36th St

2006-06-27T23:09:00.000-04:00

The waitstaff at Avenue Café has uniforms that match the awning -- this sounds awful now that we’ve written it down, but it’s actually rather cute. Not as cute as retro "Mel’s Diner" inspired dresses would be, but since Avenue café doesn’t even serve grits (and thus threatening customers with grit-kissing would be pointless) the matching t-shirts are good enough. As far as we can tell the hostess is free to dress as she wishes. If we owned Avenue Café we would impose a company-wide “no lace leggings” rule in order to rein in her Lindsey Lohan inspired fashion choices.

Brianna (who, as you may remember, holds the title of resident Greek expert due to spending 10 whole days in the motherland last summer) does not recall a plethora of light-up walls from her travels, but they certainly are popular here in Astoria. Avenue’s offering is less offensive than most… but it’s still a (huge) light up wall. MTV2 was playing on the flat-screen but the club music spewing forth very, very loudly from the millions of wall-mounted speakers was from some other source. Our hatred of lace leggings plus these complaints about the loud devil music might be the evidence that we are approaching 30 at a much too speedy clip.

We ordered frappes ($3.75) and the small mezze sampler. The sampler consisted of fried cheese, pita, grilled chicken, cucumber, tomato, olives and two items we had never heard of (Lautza and Loukanico) which the nice waitress informed us were smoked pork (turned out to be basically fried ham…) and some type of sausage. The frappes seemed to have a heavier coffee flavor than most-- which Amy liked and Brianna didn’t (odd since Amy is usually the more wimpy coffee drinker). We had mixed feelings about the food: The sausage, the cheese and especially the ham and cheese rolls stacked on cucumber and tomato slices: YUM! The chicken (dry), the fried ham (fried ham?) and the olives (how can olives lack flavor?): blah. We decided to top of our evening (and thighs) with a nutella crepe with vanilla ice cream (~$6) which was wonderfully delicious (but really how do you ruin nutella crepes?).

Service was a little spotty— we had finished our water and frappes and even after we asked for more water it took quite a long while to appear. However, the waitress was very nice, and even came back to correct her first explanation of what Loukanico was. The patronage was mainly young and attractive—possibly the club-going types that would enjoy the music that was giving Amy a headache and making Brianna reminisce about why she doesn’t like dance clubs. There was one women wearing an inexplicable top…it was like a tank top with a very wide cowel neck sown over the top… but otherwise everyone was much hipper than us.

Awesome Astoria Activities:

Anyone up for billiards? Snooker?

Food: 3.5
Service: 3
Patron Attractiveness: 4
Wait Staff Attractiveness: 4.5
Ambiance: 3.5

Frappés Hit the Big Time

2006-06-21T08:01:00.000-04:00

While pursing the fluffier side of the New York Times I came across an article on summertime drinks from around the world. Our humble little neighborhood drink made a stunning appearance:

Cafe Kolonaki, in Astoria, is one of New York's most authentic Greek cafes and a destination for lovers of the frappé, Greece's addictive national drink.
"Greeks drink frappés all day and all night when it's hot outside," said Stefanos Lintzeris, an owner of the cafe, which stocks special shakers and a kind of Nescafé instant coffee that is made just for the frappé.
Made from cold water, instant coffee and sugar, a frappé is distinguished by the thick mocha-colored foam at the top of the drink, produced by violent shaking. There is no milk in it, but a creamy foam is the mark of a well-made frappé. (The word is French, pronounced frap-PAY, even though the drink was invented in Greece in the 1950's.)
"I drink them all day," said Fernanda DaSilva, a Cafe Kolonaki waitress in a "Brasil" tank top on the first day of World Cup play. "By the afternoon I am running up and down the stairs and bouncing off the walls."

No Milk! Color us shocked. Normally we cannot stomach coffee in anywhere near it's black form but I guess once its been freeze dried and saturated with sugar coffee approaches edible even without dairy.

Wassi Cafe -- 28th Ave and 37th St

2006-06-15T21:09:00.000-04:00

Wassi Café falls into the “Maybe-not-a-Greek-Café” category, and since the visit fell on a day when we updated our long Cafes To Do List, we couldn’t help but wonder if we really had to go here. This isn’t to say that it was a pleasant place to waste a bit of a summer evening, just that the evening in question did not involve any frothy Nescafe goodness.

Wassi is little and seems pretty new to the neighborhood. It gives off a very cute coffee-shop vibe with décor that is a little plain but comfy. There’s some nice artwork on the walls and they have cushy looking black leather(ette?) couches inside. They also offer wireless internet access (a first for an Astoria café!). The outdoor seating area is tiny, just four very welcoming tables; and since summer has finally begun we were very happy to snag one. It may be a sign that wedding overload has put us in a scary homemaking frame of mind but we also noticed that Wassi has two different very adorable types of sugar dispensers.

Since there were no frappes to be found we both ordered iced skim milk cappuccinos ($3.75) (all accusation that we are yuppie slime have just been proven). The drinks came with a sprinkling of cinnamon which we couldn’t quite decide if we liked, it looked pretty and in general we like cinnamon but it had a bit an eggnog vibe which was off putting in June (Bri is a very seasonal eater).

Wassi claims to have sandwiches and wraps but when we asked about them we were told that they were all out of food except for pastries. Amy ordered a croissant ($2.00) and Brianna 2 small danishes ($2.50 for one raspberry and one cheese). The waitress warmed up the croissant and it was delicious in a way only French pastries made with tons of butter can be. The danishes were ok… a little dry, probably because they’d been waiting around since morning to be eaten.

The absolute best thing about Wassi is that after the food is taken away, but before the waitress brings your check, she brings you free cookies! The small wafer cookies in chocolate sauce were a yummy surprise, though they might have been more complimentary (excuse the unintentional pun) with our coffees, as opposed to afterwards. However, as seen in earlier entries, we don’t diss the free. We’ve even been considering buying matching n eighborhoodies with our slogan on the back (“Please buy us off!”).

Awesome Astoria Activities:

Rapture:

Right down the street is a very cute-looking bar, with apparently free viewings of independent films on Wednesday evenings. However, and according to the review on the door there are often fights. So it might be a trade off…

Food: 2.5 (though we should perhaps reconsider after visiting at a time when food is available…)
Service: 3.5
Ambiance: 3
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 3.5
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 4

What We've gotten into Update

2006-06-15T18:00:00.000-04:00

Still lots of caffeine to consume...

Done
Athens Cafe -- 30th and 32nd
Omonia Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd
Kolonaki Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd
Zodiac -- 31st and Newtown
Byzantine -- 31st and Newtown
Lefkos Pyrgos -- 23rd Ave at 31st
Park Kafe -- 30th and 30th
Wassi Coffee Lounge -- 28th and 37th

To Do
Plaza Cafe -- 30th and 29th
Cafe Bar -- 36th and 32nd
Cavo Cafe -- 31st and 42nd
Grand Cafe -- 30th and 37th
Flo -- 30th and 38th
Lefkos Pyrgos -- 23rd at 31st
Avenue Cafe -- 30th and 36^th
Santorini -- Steinways and ??
Galaxy -- 30th and 37th
Flo, -- 38th and 30th ave
Avenue Cafe -- 30th and 36th
Galaxy -- 30th and 37th
Locale -- 34th and 33rd
Elite- 28th and 32nd

*updated 6/17/06 by amy*

A Brief Commercial Interruption

2006-06-11T22:26:00.000-04:00

Awhile back I received an email from Brianna who asked if I "want some free coffee and a mug?" The answer to that is of course, yes, as I very rarely turn down free things. So I went off to check out the good folks (and the free wares) at Boca Java. True to their word, I received more coffee than I could ever hope for in the mail. The only thing left to hope was that it would be worth the sacrifice of counter and freezer space...

The deal with getting free coffee though, is that after you get it, it must be reviewed. I assume if I didn't review it I would get an invoice of some sort in the mail. I don't want to get on the bad side of people who shower me with free gifts, so here I am, dutifully spending my Sunday evening shilling for the man instead of finishing my bridesmaid's gifts. That's the kind of dedicated free-stuff-getter I am.

My honest opinion of coffee lies somewhere like this: I sorta like it.

However....

I like coffee better iced.
I like coffee better with ungodly amounts of sugar in it.
I don't like cream in my coffee, but I do like whole milk. However, we only keep skim milk in our house.

None of these are putting me up there as a supreme coffee-reviewer. Thankfully, Boca Java never said you had to love coffee in order to get it for free. And luckily I live with a boy who does love coffee... So much so that he needs none of my "training wheels"-- he drinks it black, no sugar. We had a nice thing going: he drank the coffee I made, I made it as much to my likings as possible, and here we all are finding the ultimate answer: What do we really think about Boca Java and the coffee that they provide-- and the blogging market they are so desperately trying to corner?

Out of the six (6!) coffees that they provided for my reviewing pleasure, I have tried 3 of them so far. We have not tried two of those remaining three because they are flavored (Joe dislikes flavored coffees, and even I felt they sounded a little too much) and one because we just haven't made too much coffee lately. The untested coffees are: Late Night Log In; Blogger Fuel, Blogger's Pajama Passion: Life's Short. Blog Hard. and Blogger's Beach Blast: Go Ahead. Make My Blog.

Something to keep in mind during my reviews is that even though Boca Java does have whole-bean coffee, I ordered it pre-ground. Then I brewed it in our press pot, so the integrity of the coffee may have been compromised.

Now, what we've all been waiting for (assuming that you're still reading)... The contenders:

Blogger's Boot Up Blend: Blogging Rocks. Blend of African, Central and South American coffees. "rich taste and smooth finish for the perfect Breakfast blend"

We tried this one first, and liked it but didn't love it. It had a great rich smell, and beautiful color. It was a little to intense for my tastes though. I plan to give it another chance one of these days.

New Media Mavericks: unfledged Truth. Costa Rican with "excellent body and robust richness"

This was my favorite. It had a nicely round flavor, and tasted really good the way I like it: sweet over ice. Joe had it hot, and deemed it his favorite immediately.

Blogs of Bravery: the real story in real time. : Blend of south American dark and medium roasts "a well balanced smooth taste"

We tried this one yesterday morning. There was a slight brewing accident, so we were a little worried it wouldn't taste right. However, it was good (if a little bitter due to the fact that I got grinds all over...) And I'm not just saying that to be nice to the purveyors of free stuff. It was the first one that I had tried hot, and I really enjoyed it-- though not as much as the New media Mavericks. Again, I might want to make it again, correctly before condemning it, especially as it was totally drinkable in it's "whoops!" state.

So my final thought is: New Media Mavericks is great. Bold, rich, yummy. All a girl could ask for in free coffee. And I hold faith that their flavored coffees will live up to the standards that have been set for them. And that standard is set at this : that there's some damn fine coffee.

And now back to your cafe-reviewing pleasure.

Park Kafe- 30th Ave and 30th St

2006-05-25T21:01:00.000-04:00

We know you missed us last week, but don't worry too much. The old-lady mafia didn't take us down. We were just a little busy, and we're back!

Park Cafe is the reincarnation of Baru (which received this rather unflattering review from Joey in Astoria). Neither of us ever visited Baru but Park Cafe must be a huge improvement.

The decor is trendy and cute. If it weren't for the Greek columns visible across the street in Athens Park, you could almost imagine you were in Manhattan (not that we don't love Astoria). It was a beautiful day, but we're still wary of sitting outside until it's a little warmer out (and then it will probably be too warm out and we'll want to sit inside because we are ridiculously difficult). If Amy had a porch she would consider registering for the adorable stripy patio chairs (perhaps she should register for a house, or at the very least a yard, instead). The wide open windows and the incredibly comfy leather chairs made us see why people choose to lounge in the cafes for hours on end. There were a few questionable choices (the surface of the bar probably didn't *need* to glow...), yet that seems to be the norm.

We had conflicting opinions on the bathroom and thus will have to review it separately -- maybe one of you can make a visit and cast the tie breaking vote.

Amy says: After the past two HORRIBLE bathrooms (Zodiac and Byzantine, I'm looking at you), walking into the bathroom at Park Kafe was like walking into bathroom-paradise. The sink was stunning, and with the exception of the ass-ugly rose petals in the decorative bowl, the decor was nice, yet still understated. The bathroom was not trying too hard. I didn't even notice the iridescent of the wall tiles until I was about to leave. Not to mention, automatic hand-dryers are theoretically better for the environment than paper towels. Bravo Park Kafe. I give it 4.5/5.

Brianna says: Amy made the first visit to the bathroom and came back gushing so I had no choice but to also embark on a trip to the loo. It probably is the nicest cafe bathroom that we've been to (though i was horribly bored with no graffiti to entertain me) but Amy may have oversold. The wall tile is a funky iridescent color but the grout work is sloppy and the round bowl-like sink is impressive but it's neighboring silver plate is a sad obvious attempt to cover up the hole in the counter meant for a second sink. Also: No paper towels. I give it a 3/5.

The menu was the typical behemoth, you can have anything from steak-on-a-stick to fried ravioli to pineapple mojitos. There are surprisingly few Greek options (save a plate of dips a la Zodiac, and a tempting baked cheese appetizer). Though we entered the cafe with the desire for some honey drenched, philo-baked goodness, there was not one to be ordered. We opted instead for fondue ($10.95) and two Frappes (3.75 each). The Frappes were, again, over ice instead of blended which we are all but convinced is the ideal. We've set a goal of solving one cafe mystery per review and today we were able to verify the pronunciation for Frappe -- we can now officially stop looking like uncultured ogres -- it's Frap-ay.

The fondue, though great to look at wasn't smooth enough and we felt like the combo of cheese and bread could have benefited from some roughage (apples? carrots?) to dip in between slices of carbs coated in fat but neither of these points kept us from consuming almost the entire bowl. The menu described the fondue as a blend of a few cheeses and you could really taste the feta which gave it a sharp edge that we both enjoyed. We peeked onto the plates of the tables around us and spied two huge decadent looking ice cream sundaes, so we plan on a revisit for American dessert sometime in the near future.

The patrons skewed young, and predominantly Greek-speaking, despite the lack of Greek cuisine. The group of five boys sitting next to us were attractive and friendly (We kept taking pictures of what seemed like the back of their heads. They may have thought we were stalking them) and the group of ladies in the back were equally attractive.

Service was good...our pretty Greek waitress was ready to take our order before we were (because we were slackers- not because she rushed us), and our food came quickly. However she did dally a bit in bringing the check after we finished (perhaps allowing us opportunity to lounge).

Awesome Astoria Activity:

Athens Park.... complete with statue of Athena straight from Athens (thanks guys!)

Overall, here's the final score:

Food: 3.5
Service: 4
Ambiance: 5
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 4
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 4.5

Byzantio-- 31st St and 28th Ave

2006-05-12T00:13:00.000-04:00

Byzantio is very chic – they have adorable red and yellow hanging lights over the spacious bar, comfy brown leather(ette?) chairs, a megatouch machine (not located next to the bathrooms), three flat screen TVs, somewhat subtle red lighting accenting the walls and the cutest waitresses so far (and that's saying something!). They are located next to the train tracks, so sitting by the front windows is loud (we quickly relocated, despite the excellent view we had of Zodiac), but they have tons of room (and tons and tons of empty tables). The patronage was younger than that of the last few cafes we've been to, and much more attractive. No possibly homeless men sleeping in the corners here.

Their pastry case is pathetic in comparison to all of the others we’ve seen, except for perhaps Zodiac-- we’d hardly blame them for accosting photographers – you wouldn’t want word to get out that you're slacking in the Greek pastry department. The display was probably only 5 feet wide and it didn’t even light up. It’s hard for the L things to call your name when they can’t see you due to lack of proper illumination. How can you expect the E things to thrive if they have to live in the equivalent of a cake deprivation room?

The menu is strangely devoid of Greek food –they have Greek salad and baklava but other than that it’s hamburgers and tuna sandwiches (Well, “tuna toast”). They also offer a plate of “fresh ground beef” covered in marinara sauce and bacon and served with French fries. One has to wonder why this is not smothered in gravy. If you’re gonna tempt heart failure, have some balls. They did have frappes ($3.50) – so it’s still a café. While ordering we decided to do a little investigative reporting and we managed to squeeze some info out of our waitress about the Greek toast mystery that was discovered during our mis-adventures at Lifkos Pirgos. We asked her what it was (Christina Amanpour better watch out). Turns out it’s just a ham and cheese sandwich – we were advised not to order it, so we got a pizza with tomato, ham and feta ($9.00) instead.

The frappes were like those at Zodiac in that they were not ice-y, but just sugary milk and Nescafe over ice – this may lend credence to Amy’s fiancé’s theory about the two cafés sharing one owner (even though the menus were totally different). Unfortunately the frappes were nowhere near as good as those at Zodiac mostly because they were full of little undissolved Nescafe chunks. The pizza was okay, but our opinion of it went down the more we ate. The ham and under-ripe tomato lacked any distinguishable flavor and the feta was pretty mild. There was some other filler cheese swimming around that we couldn’t identify. The crust was okay though – crisp if a little thick.

Two of the TVs in the room were predictably set to Greek news so we weren’t paying much attention until out of the corner of her eye Brianna spotted a Trade Fair commercial. We watched the whole commercial, mouths agape. Greek TV originates right here in Astoria! All this time we had assumed it was a satellite feed from the motherland. The commercial made Trade Fair look clean and well stocked-- someone should confront them about lying to new immigrants.

Brianna made a trip to the bathroom and it was disgusting -- they definitely need to get their cleaning crew backstage. The walls, however, were a treasure trove of graffiti goodness. This café visit was a reconnaissance mission and we discovered that there is an Astoria race war taking place exclusively on the bathroom walls at Byzantio. The front line appears to be 15 year old girls calling each other bitches and hos.

We’re awash in awesome Astoria activities this week:

Dance lessons!

Hanging out in an empty lot! (it’s rave time folks! Pass it on!)

Perhaps watching Lost a bit too obsessively has made us mystery whores, but Greek Café Tour ’06 is feeling a little like under-cover work these days. And, again like Lost, just when you think you’re getting things figured out you realize you know nothing.

Mysteries solved:
1. Greek Toast = Grilled Ham and Cheese
2. There’s a NY based Greek tv station (or Trade fair has expanded internationally so that people in Greece can enjoy their tini tiny aisle and sub-par produce… but really, Occam’s razor.)

Remaining/New Mysteries:
1. Where do all the café’s get matching Café Freddo glasses?
2. How do these cafés stay in business with so few customers?
3. What do those Greek stores with the weird tulle things sell and who is buying it?
4. Are American girls all bitches?

Tune in next time….

Food: 2
Service: 4
Ambiance: 4.5 (-.5 for the germy bathroom)
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 4.5
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 4

Zodiac -- 31st and Newtown

2006-05-03T20:54:00.000-04:00

Cafe number 5 and it's only May!

Brianna walks by Zodiac late at night on her way home from watching trashy television at Amy's house, and the strobe lights and loud music had her convinced that it was some sort of restaurant/dance club fusion venue. But, despite the small number of pastries on the menu, we were able to order frappes so it *must* be a cafe!

Zodiac carries the astrology theme throughout their decor. The signs of the zodiac adorn the walls and tables, we half hoped for fortune-stuffed baklava. The big blue chairs cradled our tushies and invited us to linger at our table long after our bellies were full -- a good furniture choice for people who want to sell you more coffee and booze. The only questionable decorating choices were the randomly placed faux stone columns and purple track lighting in the molding (inspired by the undercarriage lights perviously seen only on tricked out Hondas).

The crowd was more mixed then we had previously seen -- some of the customers were not only NOT Greek, they weren't even European! The wait staff was older (all things being relative -- they were probably in their early 40s at the oldest) and very inconspicuous. We had 2 waitresses and a busboy and we can't remember any of them speaking -- in general the service was good though slightly creepy in a "The Night of the Zombie Waiters" sort of way.

The frappes.. they were awesome! They were less icey and frapachino-ish than those we've had at previous cafe's and had the perfect level of sweetness and only $3.25. The lack of desserts and the time of day (7pm) lead us to order the Pikilia ($9.95) -- 3 dips: baba ganoush, tzatziki and mystery smoked fish dip served with warm pita and sesame bread sticks. All of the dips were super yummy. The baba ganoush very garlicky, but in a good way. The tzatziki was good though maybe a little watery. The third dip was a bit of a mystery, it was defiantly of oceanic (or lake-ian) origin with a little diary mixed in and perhaps some liquid smoke -- we spent a good 5 mins trying it and wrinkling our faces up in deep thought playing name that flavor but we never came up with anything more specific than, "it's good...ish..."

The bathroom was... well, a bathroom. Amy felt it didn't fit in with the rest of the decor, due to it's excessive plainness. It was a private room versus a group bathroom, but it just wasn't that nice-- the toilet seat was loose, there were tape remnants on the wall. However, it did it's job, so whatever. If only they had carried the Zodiac theme into the bathroom-- a stall for each sign. Brianna wishes to offer suggestions to Zodiac, involving urine and the "scales" of Libra, but Amy thinks it might offend the sensibilities of our gentle readers, so we'll leave it to your imaginations. There was also another MegaTouch machine outside of the bathrooms, so a trend has officially been tracked.

Amazing Astoria Activities:

Well, you could always go to the cafe across the street (that Amy's fiance swears is owned by the same people, possibly due to the neon lighting on the outside, but that has not been confirmed by anyone who's not just speculating):

There's what Amy believes to be a dance club next door:

Food: 4.5
Service: 4
Ambiance: 5 (Amy really liked the blue chairs)
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 3
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 2.5

Lefkos Pirgos -- 31st 23rd ave

2006-04-27T21:38:00.000-04:00

Cafe number 4 is Lefkos Pirgos. There was a time (way back last week) when we had decided that Lefkos was a bakery and not a cafe and therefore we did not have to go there -- but then one of our readers claimed it was a cafe and it went back on the list no questions asked -- this is just one of the many sacrifices we have made for you people.

That said... Lefkos is TOTALLY a bakery (in your face readers!). They don't have menus save the little plastic table-top cards and though they *claim* to serve pizza and "Greek toast" (toast with honey? toast with humus? toast with Nescafe? mmmmm yummy!) there was no kitchen that we could see. They do however have:

1. Booze
2. Greek TV with the volume set to"outdoor voice" and the channel set to "bad soap opera"(special bonus: Greek subtitles! for our deaf readers who also read Greek (niche market people.))
3. Enough pastries to support the suspicious number of dentists in Astoria (seriously, we may have stumbled upon a vast conspiracy...).

The crowd skewed much older and less euro-trashy than that at the last three establishments. Because we are young, arrogant whippersnappers old kind of brings the Patron attractiveness rating down. The wait staff held their own though -- these Greek cafes seem to have a monopoly on pretty young things.

We were going to sit outside, however "outside" is a synonym for "smoking section" so we sat inside mostly by ourselves (there was also an old Greek lady with her eyes glued to the soaps... more on her later, stay tuned.). The no-menus thing caught us off guard and made us look like bumbling idiots in front of our very nice waitress who immediately showed up to take our order. After much hemming and hawing by the two of us she offered to take us up to the never ending row of pastry cases and explain in detail all of our options -- yeah! The dessert selection at Lefkos is really quite impressive -- we felt somewhat obligated to get something vaguely Greek so we steered away from the (very tempting) napoleons, cheesecakes and tiramisu. We settled on Ekmek ($5.00) -- a layered cake thing consisting of:

1. layer of shredded philo dough
2. layer of honey soaked almonds
3. layer of vanilla custard
4. layer of whipped cream
Place this into a large pool of Greek honey and voila! 5000 calories of yum.

We also both had a medium (sweetness, not size) frappe ($3.50) which was good though less sweet then those offered at other places (we could have both gone for a "sweet" over the "medium" -- on that note, we're feeling pretty hip to the lingo these days, impressive huh?). Amy's milk refused to merge with her nescafe and sugar making her slightly concerned about her stirring abilities.

We did not go to the bathroom so we can't give it rating (damn our empty bladders) -- pee at your own risk folks.

Awesome Astoria Activities

I wonder what the over/under is on Amy fitting into her wedding dress after 15 more servings of Greek desserts....

Also: a few stores down (towards Ditmars) we stopped in on the cutest little boutique with adorable designer-y clothing at fairly reasonable prices. We plan on spending money here in an effort to encourage clothing stores other than Mandee to converge on the neighborhood.

Food: 3.5
Service: 4.5
Ambiance: 2.5
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 3
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 2

And now a very scary story:

Upon starting this project we had been slightly concerned that we might not be so welcome in the Greek cafes what with our clearly not Greek looks. But mostly we (and our money) have been welcomed, and with the exception of the occasional absent waitress (who, it should be noted seems to be absent regardless of ethnicity) we've felt very comfortable in the cafes that we've been to. Ironically we immediately started talking about this when we sat down at Lefkos....

So. It's late in the review process, most of the cake has been reduced to custard residue mixed with honey. We're sitting there in the corner. Drinking our coffees, taking notes, making catty comments about people walking by. Brianna decides to take a picture of the pretty pretty spinning tower of cakes. This was, perhaps, a huge mistake.

The old Greek lady was ripped away from her soap operas when her spidey senses alerted her to the illegal (??) photo-taking events now transpiring in (her?) cafe. She immediately came over to our table to demand information about the photo we had just taken -- but before we could even get out our lie (about a friend? with a birthday coming up? and how he would love a pretty pretty yummy cake? and that we would totally give her money for it?) she informed us that our behavior would not be tolerated and that next time we should "Be careful" and "Watch out." We tried to laugh this off and smile cutely so she would turn off her evil eye and go back to her soaps but... no dice.

So... we're not sure if we'll be doing another review; we might have a curse on us, or we might be killed by the Greek old lady Mafia. If either of these things happen please, someone hire Chloe from Smallville, or Veronica Mars or one of those CSI guys to use their magic crime fightin' tools to examine this photo and figure out just what kind of evil plot the Lefkos cake display is a front for.

Kolonaki Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd St

2006-04-19T22:31:00.000-04:00

Dreams really do come true. Just three days ago we wished extra hard and with all our might to be at Kolonaki Café and here we are. This is proof that if you believe in your dreams you will make them happen.

Kolonaki is cute – it has a second story with adorable balconies that look out on to Broadway and 33^rd which makes for great people watching. The décor inside is nice if a bit garish – the huge scepter-like sconces were a bit daunting, especially since the scuff marks on the wall seem to indicate that they occasionally fall down and impale people (talk about good people watching!). The tables were, again, very close together – perhaps to make non-Europeans feel chubby, squeezing into a seat is an exercise in sucking it in. The lobby area has a collection of Greek themed gifts for sale – most of the items were Easter based today (Greek Easter in t-minus 4 days!) but they also had “got frappe” shirts for all your milk ad campaign parody needs. As an extra bonus, there is live Jazz on Monday nights.

The service at Kolonaki is… casual. We met at the café and kind of hung around in the lobby-like area until a cute waitress walked by – we asked if we could sit upstairs and she seemed to not fully understand why we would think that waitressing duties include the seating of patrons. We sat at one of the tables overlooking Omonia (memories…) but the table was broken and dangerously wobbly so we immediately moved to another table. The joint was pretty empty – just us, a smoking woman (unfortunately for us and the law we mean smoking in the cigarette way not that hubba hubba way) and… a sleeping, possibly homeless guy. We had been kind of surprised that there was no smoking in Athens or Omonia what with how much the Greeks seem to enjoy chain smoking, but Kolonaki finally lived up to our hazy room stereotypes -- our waitress followed us upstairs and immediately offered us an ashtray. By the time we left the restaurant there were 6 other tables (including the now awake and smoldering (again, not in the good way) homeless guy) and only 2 were living on the right side of the New York Smoking laws.

The menu at Kolonaki was noticeably smaller than that of the other cafes that we’ve reviewed. As seems to be the norm, the offering was very dessert heavy – however it was close to dinner time and Brianna had heard that the “real” food at Kolonaki was pretty good so we decided to forgo the sugar rush. Brianna ordered another frappe ($3.50) and was educated by the waitress on the frappe options – medium (milk and two sugars) or sweet (milk and four sugars). Four sugars sounded like a lot so she went with the medium… Amy ordered an iced coffee ($3.25, strangely, hot coffee is only $1.95 – that ice has to be shipped all the way from Antarctica I guess). The waitress had a really hard time grasping the concept of “bring us our drinks and then we’ll order food” and refused to let us keep both menus but eventually we convinced her to go get the coffees.

Brianna found the “medium” frappe a little bitter, three sugars seems like it would be a happy medium. The ice coffee was… weird. I guess for the extra buck they felt obligated to jazz it up a bit. The result was Guinness-like—foamy on top and black on the bottom. It *looks* like it has steamed milk on the top but… foamy milk stirs into coffee, right? The coffee tasted fine but Amy wasn’t given any milk (outside of the possibly dairy based foam) so she felt the need to add extra sugar (8 instead of 4) to compensate.

For dinner Brianna decided on the European tuna salad sandwich (“fat-free” even though it has a ton of olive oil in it… I… don’t know.) ($6.95). Amy ordered the Caesar salad sans chicken which the waitress was surprisingly un-confused about... maybe there are Greek vegetarians after all ($5.95). Our food arrived fairly quickly, in comparison to the other cafes. The tuna salad sandwich, on pita bread, was accompanied by potato-chips (making the “European” food more American friendly one assumes), and the Caesar salad had pita on the side. Brianna’s fare was very good- the tuna salad had high-quality (aka tasty) capers. Amy’s salad was also quite yummy. The “homemade croutons” were crunchy and cheese-covered, and it was swimming in salad dressing. For other people this may be considered a negative, but Amy’s tendency towards excess is not limited to too much sugar in her beverages. After taking a nibble of Amy’s salad, Brianna suspected that it was drenched in Italian dressing (Whatever. Caesar was totally Roman).

And for the highlight of the review… the bathrooms were pretty basic, and on the second floor (ruining our basement-bathroom trend) and better equipped overall than those at Omonia. There were two single-person bathrooms (Our more adventurous readers could probably squeeze two (or more?) in there… *wink wink nudge nudge…*) with plenty of soap, toilet paper and paper towels for all. Speaking of trends, Mega-touch machines by the bathroom? We’ll be keeping you guys updated on that one.

Awesome Astoria Activities:

Broadway seems surprisingly devoid of fun activities that are not food-oriented (we assume that after leaving the café, you are full of caffeine goodness). You could get your hair done I suppose, or go to the dentist again. But we suggest walking off some of your calories with a trip to Steinway where you can also exercise your credit card at one of the many Payless Shoe Stores (do we really need *two* sources for plastic shoes within a block of each other???)

Food: 4
Service: 2
Ambiance: 3
Average Attractiveness of Staff: 2.5
Average Attractiveness of Patrons: 1.5 (hard to see them through the smoke, and the possibly homeless guy really dragged the numbers down)

What We've Gotten Ourselves Into

2006-04-18T19:48:00.000-04:00

Just how many frappes have we commited to drinking? Our priliminary list:

Done
Athens Cafe -- 30th and 32nd
Omonia Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd

To Do
Kolonaki Cafe -- Broadway and 33rd
Zodiac -- 31st and Newtown
Byzantine -- 31st and Newtown
Plaza Cafe -- 30th and 29th
Park Kafe -- 30th and 30th
Cafe Bar -- 36th and 32nd
Cavo Cafe -- 31st and 42nd
Grand Cafe -- 30th and 37th
Flo -- 30th and 38th
Lefkos Pyrgos -- 23rd at 31st
Avenue Cafe -- 30th and 36^th
Santorini -- Steinways and ??
Galaxy -- 30th and 37th

This was off the top of our heads without any research at all (we're lazy.). Help us out folks -- post additional cafe suggestions in the comments!

Edited 12:45 pm: list updated with suggestions from comments

Omonia Café – 33rd and Broadway

2006-04-16T21:51:00.000-04:00

Omonia is located directly across the street from Café Kolonaki which makes it the perfect setting for a romantic comedy where the cute meet involves googly eyes being made through the traffic. Omonia has actually already had it’s 15 minutes of romantic comedy fame – they claim to have made the wedding cake for My Big Fat Greek Wedding -- it looks yummy and devoid of Windex in the pictures on the wall. There’s a second location in Bay Ridge Brooklyn at 7612 3rd Ave. The people watching potential is probably better than that at Athens as Broadway is a busier street – we particularly enjoyed the vehicle watching.

This café has no outside seating, though all of the floor to ceiling windows open up onto the street. There were some gorgeous trees outside with pink spring flowers on them. The tables inside are squeezed really close together and we found ourselves having to carefully maneuver in and out of our seats so as not to knock into other patrons, and the back of Amy's seat kept getting bumped. The clientele was much older than that at Athens Café though this might only be the difference between Tuesday at 6:30 in the evening and (non-Greek) Easter Sunday afternoon. A sign on one of the windows claimed that a piano player performed Friday Saturday and Sunday – we’re less concerned that we missed the promised music and more confused at the lack of a visible piano in the restaurant at all. If, as would seem is quite likely, we missed a guy miming a piano performance we’ll really be upset.

We were impressed with the menu which was once again huge and busting with tempting dessert-age. They apparently serve homemade ice cream and we saw a family close to us consume what looked like a delicious banana split. There were, however, no “L things” on the menu but after some investigatory work we discovered that they were hiding under the name “touloumba” so if you want fried dough in honey you may have to modify your order from “the L things” to “the T things” – Greek desserts demand flexibility.

When we started planning this project we had decided to order the same thing in every café we reviewed for comparison's sake, but Brianna gained a pound last week and Amy’s going to have a hard time downing hot coffee come July so we’ve already broken that rule (we’re rebels folks.). We ordered a Greek Coffee, an American Coffee Float (With vanilla ice cream), Kourambiedes (K things) and Galactoboureko (G things).

The Greek coffee (~$2.75) will be keeping Brianna up for the next week and a half. Most of you probably think of a liquid beverage when you hear the word “coffee” – you are not thinking outside of the mug. This black brew was the consistency of thick mud. The flavor was probably much like espresso with a lot of sugar in it – not bad really, if you like that sort of thing – Bri found it a bit overpowering.

The coffee float (~$4.00) looked amazing, but the coffee it was made with was very weak and the ice cream overly icy. Amy added a package of sugar to this concoction but that should probably reflect poorly on her, not the drink. She likes her sugar a bit too much.

The K things (~$1.95 for 2 cookies) were the standout -- these butter almond cookies covered in powdered sugar and sprinkled with rose water were divine. They were very crunchy and crumbly and covered you in powdered sugar when you bit into them – we like any dessert that leaves a trail so that people we meet on the street hours later will be jealous of our meal.

The G thing ($4.25) was a slab of vanilla custard surrounded by filo dough. This sounds like a good idea but in practice it didn’t feel like the taste would be worth the calories. The custard was kind of bland -- so much so that we think the flavor can only be described as vaguely sugary. The filo dough was soggy because it was sitting in honey, which ruined the potential smooth/crisp contrast that we had hoped for. We didn’t come anywhere close to finishing this.

I suspect that where Omonia excels is in pastries (The G thing notwithstanding) – the have 3 pastry cases and everything in them looked amazing as did the cakes staked up in the adjoining bakery.

The bathrooms were again located downstairs (is it too early to call this a trend?) but we a huge disappointment in comparison to Athens. They had germ-a-phobe ready toilets with the automatic plastic covers but they were broke, the soap dispensers (non-automatic) were empty and the whole room seemed less than clean.

Service was very slow-- after we were obviously done, we spent a good 20 minutes trying to flag down someone to bring us our check and watched the boys at the table next to us do the same when trying to pay theirs. The only plus that gave us was the opportunity to make a friend (hi Justin!). Amy finally made eye contact with a waitress and mimed the universal symbol for “we’ve been sitting here long enough for our butt cheeks to fall asleep, please bring us the check.” but she immediately forgot about us (again?) and we had to perform another round of charades in order to get out of there. If it had gone on any longer, Amy might have actually finished the G-thing out of boredom. We were very glad to have exact change.

Awesome Astoria Activities:

Omonia itself offers one of the best pastimes in the area – video games:

Sure you have to wedge yourself into a corner near the skeevy bathrooms but they’re 2D! Fuck that 1D bullshit.

Overall we kind of wished we were across the street.

Food: 2.5
Service: 1.5
Ambiance: 3.5
Average attractiveness of staff: 3.5
Average attractiveness of patrons: 2.5

Athens Cafe --30th Ave and 32nd St.

2006-04-11T23:03:00.000-04:00

It’s our first cafe review! And it’s only April! This is monumentous. Typically when we start projects we don’t get beyond the talking points. But here we are, early spring with the entire summer spanning before us and already we have honey covered dessert and coffee swimming in our tummies.

Our first cafe is Athens Café. It came with the highest recommendations of a clearly insane woman, so we were excited. We arrived at 6:30 and immediately got a seat by the window inside – outdoor seating was rather crowded but it was too cold out there for us anyhow. The crowd was predominantly 20-something males, most of whom appeared to have been sitting at the cafe for the last 5 hours. The cafe was quite trendy – airy, open, lots of windows and the only option for at least a block (no other Greek cafes in sight). There was a huge bar with a light-up stone wall to set off the beautiful beautiful bottles of booze. They were showing poker on the huge HDTV. Booze and gambling -- need we even finish this review?

The menu was a huge 4 pages; we choose to focus on Greek desserts because we enjoy the challenge of pronouncing things like Galaktoboureko and Loukoumades. We went with “the L things” which turned out to be fried dough covered in honey – YUM! We originally thought $7 a high price to pay for fried dough but the order contained roughly 45 lbs of greasy goodness so our wallets really can’t complain (our thighs on the other hand…).

To wash down our sugar rush Brianna ordered a Cafe Freddo ($4), Amy ordered a $3 cup of American coffee because she found the Freddo not sweet enough despite the fact that the milky liquid has reached sugar concentration – the American coffee was plenty sweet once she stirred in 3 spoonfuls of sugar (makes the fried medicine go down!). Brianna is our resident Greek expert (she spent a whole week there AND works with a Greek lady!) and she felt the Cafe Freddo was very authentic – frothy, creamy and caffeinated. Amy was hoping the American coffee would redeem itself by being “refill-a-rific” (tm Joe), but our hot-but-absent waitress did not provide any fill-a-rific opportunities.

The facilities (aka the john) were nice, if a bit hard to find—there are no obvious signs, and you have to go down stairs that are not easy to spot among the throng of tables. Once there however, all the amenities are automated—something that will please our germ-a-phobic readers, assuming that we will attract readers with debilitating psychological disorders who also love greek coffee and fried foods (every blog needs a target demograph!).

Certain unnamed entities have insinuated that there is a lack of fun and interesting activities in Astoria. So as a rebuttal we give you blog-bonus material: Amazing Astoria Activities (alliteration is catchy). Because the options are so numerous, we have decided to limit our suggestions to those which can be seen from the window of the cafe-of-the-day (rhyming is catchy too).

Today’s Amazing Astoria Activities:
Does a Cafe Freddo contain any actual coffee? Hmm... perhaps we should ask our local psychic:

No. Nescafe.

Caffeine makes you jittery, sugar gives you cavities… Astoria can help:

Overall: (in place of numbers, imagine cute icons of appropriate Greek Gods)
(All on a scale of 1-5)
Food: 4
Service: 2.5
Ambiance: 4
Average attractiveness of staff: 4.5
Average attractiveness of patrons: 3.5*

* Note that patron attractiveness rating may be skewed upwards by the presence of Amy and Bri in the cafe.

Astoria Cafe Challenge

2006-04-11T20:15:00.000-04:00

Bri: There are an insane number of Greek cafes in Astoria.
Amy: Many across the street from each other
Bri: More than in Greece.
Amy: I wonder if we could go to them all this summer
Bri: the summer of your wedding?
Amy: I need a distraction.
Bri: the summer where you have to look hot and skinny in a pretty princess dress?
Amy: Yeah, sounds good.