Astoria food enthusiasm

I moved to Astoria from good old Staten Island in February. I get behind Astoria, but more to the point of the blog, I get behind food in Astoria. Believe it or not, Astoria is not just about Baskin Robbins. I present to you be a (far from extensive list) of Astoria food I think is awesome.

Before we get to that, I’d like to try an experiment. Last night I was speaking to my friend Jordana who told me that use of the word “awesome” tells people what generation you are from. Apparently kids these days are using words like “popping” to express enthusiasm. It has something to do with lip gloss. So for this installment I will retire the dated word “awesome” and describe things as “popping.” I will try to do this as often as possible . It’s sort of the secret word. And what do you do when you hear the secret word boys and girls?

Astoria popping food:

1) thai restaurants

In Astoria we are ankle deep in poppin’ Thai restaurants. New ones pop up every day. I am literally swimming in pad thai and I could not be happier. Yajai is Ms. Myagi’s favorite and I like Thai pavillion. It makes sense that there would be so many Thai restaurants coexisting with so many Greek restaurants because of how close Greece and Thailand are geographically.**

2) JJ’s Sushi

I should stop writing this blog and go there right now. Just the letter’s “J’ and “J” cause me to have a Pavlovian response where I want to stop what I’m doing and eat lots and lots of sushi. They have this amazing…er….poppin’ sushi and literally everything on the menu is great. They have these amazing*** edamame dumplings as well. You should probably stop reading this and go.

3) the taco truck

The taco truck on 30th avenue and 33rd street is magical. They use actual mexican cheese and the rice and beans are delicious. The guacomole is not real, but they squeeze it out of a tube and for some reason I think that’s poppin. Supposedly the truck also delivers, but we’ve never tried this.

4) feta cheese

So you are probably going to ask me, Oh where oh where can you get yourself some feta cheese in Astoria? How about EVERYWHERE? There are so many wonderful Greek markets that I cannot even begin to name them all. Did you know that Bulgaria has a different kind of feta than Greece or France? Personally I think the French feta cheese is poppin.

5) Michael’s Restaurant

It’s a poppin diner. Everything is awesome, even non-diner foods.

** Clearly this is not true.

*****There are other words that kids today are saying but I am so unhip that I don’t know. Please leave comments with your favorite words.

Cheese from around the world

Last January Stevey and I had a life changing experience in Amsterdam when we went to a street fair and ate some cheese.
We both thought we had eaten cheese before.
We both thought we had eaten goudas before.
We were wrong.

When you go to Amsterdam* you MUST eat cheese. There are no two ways around this. In between coffee shop trips, bicycle rides and the endless eating you will inevitably do, cheese should be an activity. Don’t worry; the Dutch are friendly people** and they give you ample opportunities to eat cheese. There are street fairs, farmer’s markets, cheese tours, cheese shops, etc (getting behind amsterdam is another blog. If you haven’t been, you must go). The cheese that you will eat in Amsterdam is like none you have ever tasted before.***

Anyway when I came back from Europe I missed cheese so much. Your average Tesco has a wall of delicious cheese and very little of it is the processed crap we have. More specifically Stevey and I became obsessed with Goudas and enthusiastic about trying different cheeses. This led us to Zabars (LOVE Zabars, easily another blog) and discovering our new favorite place: Murray’s cheese shop.

Why is Murray’s awesome? They were patient with me and Steve as we asked all of our cheese related questions. They also would have let us try all the cheeses if we hadn’t become full. We left with several goudas including one from Vermont which was almost as good as what we had in Amsterdam. They also have a tour of their big cheese cold room in the back with samples provided. We haven’t actually gone on that yet, but that is in the works. Also: The tour is only $10. Murrays is also right next door to more awesomeness including Aphrodisia, and Cones (see upcoming blog about ice cream).

We leave you with your new favorite song about cheese:

*Well for that matter anywhere you go in Europe. You should just go to Europe.

**Tell them you’re Canadian or from New York if applicable.

***(unless you are from anywhere in Western Europe. A few weeks ago at Risotteria, Stevey and I were laughed at by a very nice couple from Brussels when we suggested they go get cheese in NY.)