Crescent and Vine -- Ditmars and Crescent

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