We haz them.
Thanks for the figs, Marina!
Category: Why Astoria Is the Greatest Place on Earth
Aksu Honey Fruit Update
I went and bought some more of the Aksu Honey Fruit. Alas, the apricot variety is not nearly so satisfying as the sour cherry. (Why did I mess with success? I never learn.) Other varieties available: strawberry and wild raspberry.
This, verbatim from the tag around the jar:
“Aksu Honeyfruit” is a friendly and peacefully meeting of Natural Flower Honey with Fruit Varieties, by a special Formula after long-lasting technical researches. With “Aksu Honeyfruit”, Aksu VItal A.S. has aimed to increase the consumption of Natural Honey which is very beneficial and healthy nourishment for the human being by softening, lightening and facilitating the specific sharp aroma of Honey with pleasant tastes of carefully selected Fruits, especially for the Kids.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Now eat up, Kids!
Off the Vine
This just in from one of my Astoria correspondents:
Even though I loves me the Grand Liquor store for cheapie wines, I thought I make you wise to another alternative in the ‘hood called Off The Vine (44-21 30th Ave, right across from the kick ass Italian food shop, is that around 45th street? You know the one). They opened about 3 months ago. While Grand’s selection is kind of all over the place, Off The Vine has a lovely selection from smaller vineyards around the world. Plus, the owners are cool, and they had a big plate of cookies at the counter from the Italian bakery next door (yum!), and a bowl of doggie treats (can’t vouch for those). Check it out. I think they are worth supporting.
I’d cruised past the place a couple of weeks ago, but I was mid-errand and couldn’t stop. It’s high time Astoria got its own hipster wine shop. Grand Ave does indeed have some excellent stuff, but you have to know what you’re looking for to pull it out of the surrounding TGIFriday’s Magic Mudslide mixers.
Pistilli’s Karmic Payback
A couple of years ago, I ranted about the utterly heinous Pistilli conversion over by Astoria Park. Due to the suckitude of Yahoo, all the brilliant comments are now lost, but at least I don’t feel alone in my loathing of Pistilli and its distinctly horrible aesthetics.
But bitchery always has a price. Now there’s a Pistilli project going up on the very next block from me.
Rules for Restaurant Reviewing
A little while back, I mentioned the blog New York Knife & Fork.
My suspicions about its overall uselessness were confirmed when she reviewed the joint right around the corner from my house, a Bosnian restaurant called Pasha.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think that a restaurant reviewer (especially a self-proclaimed one) should adhere to a certain code of ethics. Specifically, when confronted with a cuisine you know fuck-all about, you have a few options:
Another Pastry WTF in Astoria
I’m still a little bitter over the loss of the French bakery on Broadway. But I can understand it. Astoria is not a French neighborhood. And for some reason, its residents seem impervious to the use of butter and sugar in the right proportions.
But a Craiglist ad suggests that the (I thought) successful Laziza, which rocks the house with Mid East pastries, is up for sale.
Bad-Ass Pirate Cake Provokes Identity Crisis
Oh, that is just the fucking coolest. I need more theme cakes in my life. (Scroll through the photostream to see more pics.)
The funny thing is, I was just at the Brooklyn Kitchen, for a pig-butchering demo (more on that in a bit), and I saw that very same pirate-ship cake mold. “Rad!” I thought. And then, “Agh–dangerously close to Williams-Sonoma.” And I turned away.
Astoria Restaurant Reviews
I recently came across (OK, no, Peter forwarded me the links) two blogs doing reviews of Astoria restaurants.
Every Restaurant in Astoria seems like the more promising, if only because its authors recognize the sheer foolishness of their endeavor: “like Sisyphus, but with gyros,” as they put it. I like their moxie, and their attitude comes through loud and clear in their review of Sparrow, which pretty accurately gets at the hipster/no-hipster dilemma of Astoria.
Crab Fest 2008
We went to the St. Francis of Asisi crab feast in Baltimore again. It was fantastic. They had a new caterer this year, which may be why the crabs seemed plumper and the side dishes were tastier. Zim Zemelman and his orchestra were replaced by some new dame, but the monsignor still played the trombone, and the guy with the big moustache spun the wheel of fortune (Peter won big at the liquor wheel!). And of course there was a crazy lady stuffing crabs in her purse–there’s always one.
The Anti-Restaurants
Since last week was Blog Black Hole Week, I’m only now catching up….
There was an article, “The Anti-Restaurants,” on bad-ass supper clubs in the New York Times last week.
Initially I was miffed that Tamara and I didn’t get our due for five long years of culinary cool (we were roasting whole lambs on spits when those boar-butchering brats were in diapers!). As usual, as the media usually tells it, all the action is in Brooklyn. Whatev.
But then I got to the very end of the story, and read this:
As she was packing her knives, Ms. Lombard, the professional caterer, gave the dinner a grade of C-. She came as a friend and unpaid helper to learn molecular gastronomy techniques but instead wound up doing everything from washing dishes to taking out the trash. “When this last course comes out,” she said toward the end of her 12-hour shift, “I’m going to go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac with extra pickles.”
So, basically, Brooklyn’s underground supper-club scene is totally freakin’ rad…but the food sucks? Interesting premise.
Now I’m relieved Sunday Night Dinner (Sometimes on Saturday, or Friday, or Even Wednesday) was not mentioned at all. Not the greatest company, you know? Because SNDSSFEW does A++++ food, goddamnit, and we don’t make Jell-O out of pot liquor (see earlier in the story for this particularly vile idea).
Just sign me,
Keepin’ It Real in Queens