Despite my love for Greek food, I've never really gone to the mecca of Greektown in NYC which is Astoria. While it's geographically not that far for me, it's still a pain to get to via the subway because I've got to go into the city and then back out into Queens, so I generally never think to go there. But Holly and I were looking to explore a bit and decided to have a Greek outing in Astoria on Saturday. There is absolutely no shortage of Greek restaurants in Astoria - in fact, you'll likely have a hard time trying to pin down one place to try.
Gregory's is conveniently located near the subway stop but it's far enough way that it still feels kind of homey and welcoming. It's fairly small with a lot of tables outside, which was nice on a warm summer day. They try their best to make it feel like you're in Greece with blue and white table clothes and you can tell that it's run by locals and visited by regulars. The menu has your traditional Greek fare, so we ordered up some of my favorites: Greek salad ($7), Grilled Octopus ($15), Tzatziki ($6) and we split the Shrimp Santorini ($20).
The small Greek salad was totally enough for 2 people - it came with fresh juicy red tomatoes, a huge chunk of fresh feta, sliced cucumber, red onion and it was lightly dressed in olive oil and red wine vinegar. It's so hard to go wrong with such a classic and simple salad and this one was done well. The tzatziki was good but not mind blowing as dips go. I wasn't a huge fan of the pita it came with as it was a bit over toasted for me and dry. I usually love my pita to be super soft and warm and these were more like pita chips than bread. Next we tried the octopus which was what I was most excited by. While parts of it were tasty, they definitely overcooked some parts of it (especially the end of the tentacles) and it became chewy and hard to bite through which is exactly what you don't want in an octopus. Luckily, they redeemed themselves with the Shrimp Santorini dish which was grilled shrimp in a tomato white wine based sauce with peppers and feta on top of rice. It was quite delicious and I was trying to get every bite of rice and sauce in my belly. I'm glad that we split the dish because there was a lot of food overall but I could have easily seen myself eating the whole thing myself.
Overall, it was a very cute, quaint and homey restaurant with very warm staff. The service was a bit slow but I guess it's no different than being in Greece. While I wouldn't dismiss this place at all, I did have a much better meal at Taverna Kyclades in the city. Total bill: $40/pp with tax, tip and wine
Photo Credit: Yelp
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