Eating Astoria: Arepas Cafe & Sweet Afton again

Since moving (back) to New York, I've been introduced to the delicious wonder that is the arepa. This South American specialty is a thick patty made from cornmeal or flour and can be stuffed with meats, beans, cheeses, and veggies. So you can imagine my excitement when I was told there was a tasty arepas place close to where I live. Arepas Cafe on 36th Ave. serves a damn good Venezuelan arepa.

This arepa had shredded beef, black beans, fried sweet plantains, and white cheese. I don't remember what was in the red and green sauces that they had on the table but I couldn't stop putting them all over everything.

Black beans and rice. I can never figure out how to make my rice and beans taste this good at home.

Also because I forgot to include these in my post about Sweet Afton a few days ago, here are two more photos from there. 

Portobella burger and fried pickles. The burger was good, the breading on the pickles was weird and puffy but I can't say no to fried anything usually.

Sorry about the quality of these photos, they were taken with my phone. I'm going to start bringing my actual camera around with me again, hopefully.

Eating (and Drinking) Astoria

In an effort to catch up, I'm lumping together three places I've been to in Astoria in the past year or so. Good food, good drink, good timezzzz.

The Sparrow Tavern
A cute little pub across the street from the Bohemian Hall Beer Garden.

Steak sandwich and fries.

Pumpkin crème brûlée!

Obviously, we ate it all.

MexiBBQ

Despite the goofy name, my roommate and I decided to try out this place for brunch this past summer. Kind of hard to go wrong with unlimited mimosas in glasses the size of your head. Food wasn't bad either.

M-m-mimosas

Breakfast quesadilla. It was just okay.

Cap'n Crunch French toast.

Brunch is my favorite meal of the day.

Sweet Afton

Probably my favorite bar in Astoria so far, because it's super cute inside, is close to where I live, and has good food and beer.

A pint and fries

Mac and cheeeeeeeeeese

That's all I've got for now. Off to enjoy the rest of my day off!  (aka climb into bed for another four hours).

Eating Astoria: Fatty's Cafe

I'm so behind on blogging! This is the first of three Eating Astoria posts I've had planned for awhile, hopefully I'll get them all posted. I'm back home in Texas for the week so I have a little extra time to spare. Also, look out for some Texas themed posts, because damn I missed food from home. Anyway, back to Fatty's.

I wanted to try Fatty's on Ditmars originally because they had mofongo, which I've always wanted to try. Unfortunately they only served it at brunch and we went for dinner. They serve Latin American food here, and everything was really delicious and filling.

Hard to mess up guac and chips. And if they do, just leave the restaurant immediately because that means they can't get anything right.

Kind of pricey mojitos, but damn they were strong.

I love empanadas. I think we got cheese, beef, and chorizo.

My entree: Steak frite, with shallots and parsley butter. I substituted frites for tostones, fried plantains. I ate the whole thing.

My friend got this giant burrito, I think it's wrapped in a black bean tortilla or something?

 

And my other friend got the grilled skirt steak and a side of asparagus. Real meat-heavy meals if you can't tell.

We were completely stuffed when we left. I definitely want to come back for brunch and finally try mofongo, plus I've read they have a lovely outside patio in the daytime. Also I could use another one of those mojitos.

Eating Astoria: Queens Comfort

I decided to try out Queens Comfort after reading through their eclectic and mouth-watering menu (Cap'n Crunch chicken fingers, PB&J burger, chicken and waffles, Mexican-style grilled corn, to name a few). It's located on 30th Ave and as we walked down the street on an early Saturday night, it was bustling and busy and dotted with a ton of crowded restaurants and bars that we made note to try out in the future. 30th Ave is totally happenin' and it's a 15 minute walk from my apartment so we're definitely planning on going out there one of these nights. Anyway, Queens Comfort is totally cute and everything we got was SO DELICIOUS OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY.

Their version of elote, which is Mexican-style grilled corn, similar to the corn you get in front of the H-E-B or Fiesta in Texas. This was smothered in mayo and Parmesan cheese and Sriracha sauce and tasted like home.

CAP'N CRUNCH CHICKEN FINGERS. No, your eyes do nay deceive you, that is powdered up Cap'n Crunch Cereal. Food on a whole other level. This is real life you guys.

For my entree I couldn't decide between the meatloaf sandwich or the beer braised chicken flautas, but after chomping down on two appetizers I thought the chicken flautas would be the lighter option of the two. It probably was, but not by much, because I got 3 gigantic flautas on a huge bed of corn salsa/salad stuff. It was really tasty, plus I always appreciate any dish that comes with a fried egg on top.

My roommate ordered the fried chicken and waffles, which were also, of course crazy good.

Another awesome plus is that the restaurant is BYOB, so we walked into a Duane Reade and picked up a six-pack to enjoy with our ridiculous meal.

We probably went a bit overboard on the food, because I was uncomfortably full after all of that, plus drinking two beers. Somehow, I dragged myself all the way home, collapsed on the couch and refused to move for the rest of the night. But it was so worth it. NO. REGRETS.

Eating Astoria: Telly's Taverna

This is the first installment in what will (hopefully) be an ongoing series in which I will attempt to eat my way through Astoria, one gyro at a time. 

I definitely moved to the right part of town. Astoria is known for a wide variety of awesome food from all parts of the world, and I plan on eating as much of it as I can. Last Sunday night I started with the cuisine which the area might be best known for, which is Greek food. After some Yelping and food blog perusal, I decided to try out Telly's Taverna.

Greek salad. I think feta cheese should always come in chunks that big.

Pastitsio, a creamy, cheesy Greek version of lasagna. The two things on either side were super tasty potatoes.

Grilled octopus. Tastes way better than it looks.

Pretty summer night for stuffing your face with Greek food.

Loukomades, fried dough balls covered in honey and cinnamon. I probably could've eaten about 20 of these. Plus, they were on the house!

I don't think I could ever be a really good food critic, because all of my reviews would probably be, "The food was awesome," or "The food was really good," or "The food wasn't that great but I ate it anyway." But everything was really good, and we ate our food and sipped on wine outside on a nice, warm summer night, and left with tummies full and heads pleasantly buzzing.