Astoria Seafood - Review - Astoria - New York - The Infatuation

"Astoria Seafood is always busy, but it’s still our top choice for a pick-your-own-seafood party in Astoria. From open to close, the fluorescent-lit, cafeteria-like room buzzes with BYOB birthdays, three-generation family gatherings, and people making casual meals out of round after round of fried, blackened, and grilled seafood. The family-run Greek restaurant started as a wholesale fish company and retail market in 1993, before opening a sit-down spot in 2012. We’d call it a New York City rite of passage, similar to eating a slice of pizza standing on the sidewalk. photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff photo credit: Alex Staniloff Pause Unmute The undisputed best part of a meal here is right at the beginning, when you and your friends slip plastic bags over your hands and grab whole red snappers, fistfuls of sardines, and debate the number of scallops you need. Continue until you have amassed an amount of seafood that might shock you, but will never shock the person behind the counter. After that, a gruff but effective server helps you find a table under a blue ceiling with sea creatures painted on it. You might sit next to a baby, sleeping soundly on a chair while her parents work through a plate of grilled shrimp. If you stay late enough, you’ll get to be there for the last hurrah, when they turn the music up, and groups of uncles finishing up their last six-packs wave paper napkins around as a closing salute. Food Rundown Free Bread Don’t eat it all at once. You’ll need it to sop up all the lemony sauce under the scallops, and the garlicky olive oil surrounding the blackened fish. Greek Salad Industrial-sized bowls of Greek salad sitting behind the counter get constantly replenished and retossed, so that the feta crumbles into an almost-dressing. A nice place to start before eating the ocean. Blackened Fish You have to eat a whole fish at Astoria Seafood, and you should order it blackened and smoky, with a mess of fried garlic on top and a respectable glug of olive oil. It'll come out towards the end, when you're not sure you could ever ingest another type of seafood. But you'll make room. photo credit: Alex Staniloff Fried Sardines The bar snack of seafood. If you're here with a group, get a handful of them. Sautéed Scallops Amidst all your fried and blackened items, these delicate scallops are just about perfect, and your fork will slide through them like butter. Fried Shrimp The fried shrimp have a breading so thick you almost can't taste what's inside it. We'd skip, or opt for the grilled shrimp with textbook grill marks. photo credit: Alex Staniloff Fried Squid This is the fried item you should kick things off with. Squeeze lots of lemon over it and then eat as it soaks into the craggy crust. Octopus Octopus is the only thing you don't pick yourself. When they're tallying up all your seafood at the end, they'll ask if you want any grilled octopus, which is sold by the tentacle. The answer is yes." - Willa Moore