Panino (Il Bambino; 34-08 31st Avenue)

If you're trying to convince friends from Brooklyn to move to Astoria, you would probably want to take them to Il Bambino. It's as unmistakable a sign of gentrification as you could possibly want. On a quiet, well-shaded block, it sits near a bevy of the sorts of places young bourgeois urbanites like: a vintage store, a tea shop, a wine bar, authentic-seeming upscalish ethnic restaurants and the like. Every time we've stopped there for lunch, there are white couples with babies. And its menu is made up of mainly panini, featuring a host of foodie-friendly ingredients: truffle oil, prosciutto di parma, baby arugula, sweet onion marmalade, that sort of thing. And it's delicious, too.

Despite being relatively new to the neighborhood, Il Bambino has cultivated a rustic gentility; thanks to the old furniture and somewhat rickety two-tops in the dining area, it has a faux antique feel. Painted on the wall across from the dessert case up front (Il Bambino is known for its cupcakes as well as its panini) is a giant cross-section of a pig with the cuts of meat annotated in Italian, as if the restaurant were a converted old-time butcher shop. (It's actually the old location of Martha's Country Bakery, now on Ditmars. Clearly the spot has cupcake mojo.)

We can't point to anything on the menu as being particularly outstanding, because it's all been good. The crostini take more culinary risks than the oversized panini, but with excellent results (we particularly like the crostini with truffle egg salad), and any of the panini are sure to please -- pick what you like and trust that it'll be made right. The aforementioned cupcakes are also tasty, but are so enormous as to appear clownish. Nobody really needs a cupcake with a whole Oreo on top -- but if you want it, they've got it.

Part of us wants to protest the Brooklynification of Astoria and make a principle of scorning such places at Il Bambino. But using Il Bambino as an example would make us mere curmudgeons instead of armchair watchdogs of there-goes-the-neighborhood (especially when there are restaurants listing the sound designer in the entryway, though that's less Brooklynification than just plain weird). If we can have restaurants like this nearby without the high rents or the douchey hipsters, then we are benefiting on all fronts.

Price: Extremely affordable given the consistent quality

Will we go again: Absolutely. But it seems an afternoon sort of place, though they do now have alcohol

Old-School (Omonia Café; 32-20 Broadway)

We had time to kill before a movie, so we decided to do something we had been putting off and pay our obligatory visit to Omonia for the purposes of this blog. Perhaps the most quintessential of the dessert-and-coffee Euro cafes in the neighborhood, Omonia is actually pretty staid relative to the scene on 30th Avenue. The requisite ambient techno isn't blasting, and the neon backlighting is kept to a minimum. On the night we went, Tropical Storm Hanna was threatening outside and the humidity outside was extreme, so the window wall beside our table on Omonia's outer perimeter was sweating and the view to the street streaked and foggy. The curtailed visibility was probably hurting business -- the main point of the cafes is protracted people watching -- but it made the atmosphere less intimidating for us.

Omonia's menu is surprisingly extensive -- you could actually eat dinner there if you were so inclined -- but the core lies with its coffee drinks and its pages-long list of desserts. When asked for a recommendation, our waitress, an artificially friendly Eastern European who attempted to upsell us to a bottle of wine, demurred and told us to go up to the counter and inspect them ourselves. This wasn't much help; it's the kind of display in which everything looks practically shellacked in its slightly sterile perfection. In the end we ordered the caramel cake and a piece of baklava along with two booze-enhanced coffees, each topped with a pile of whipped cream. We were somewhat embarrassed by our perplexity at the mountain of cream; we had a hard time figuring out how to even drink them without making a huge mess. (The carousers at Athens Café make it look so easy!)

The desserts were okay but not good enough to make us forget about how self-conscious the place made us feel. They're thoroughly European in their approach, with mathematical precision in the layered desserts, pristine clarity on the glazed desserts, and mounds of cream (are Europeans less prone to lactose intolerance than Americans?). This means that whatever you get will be good, but nothing will be great unless you want a by-the-book approach to whatever you order -- reliably sweet, expertly done, uninspired. As the Alpha Astoria ladies wrote of the phyllo-encased custard, the taste isn't worth the calories. (Plus, the baklava was soggy, but we're willing to blame Hanna for that, as it seems unthinkable that the original Greek cafe would have anything but crisp phyllo on the national dessert.) In the unlikely event we ever return to Omonia, we'll like get our goods to go.

Price: Consistent with other cafes, which is to say, overpriced. Two desserts and two spiked coffees set us back $29.
Will we go again? If eager non-New-York friends with outdated guidebooks visited Astoria and insisted on going to get a "taste of the boroughs," sure. Otherwise, we'll pass.

Wanna Be Eatin' Somethin' (Locale, 33-02 34th Avenue)

We approached Locale with a hint of trepidation. Astoria seems maxed out on Mediterranean restaurants -- both the old-school tuxedoed waiter kind and the supposedly chic places with blaring music and insider attitude -- and we wondered what this new cafe-restaurant tucked away on a quiet corner of 34th Avenue would add to the mix.

What we found wasn't earth-shattering: Locale won't necessarily go on the list of Astoria must-trys. But its atmosphere and menu collide to create what Cafe Bar strives, and fails, to be: a restaurant offering Astoria's Mediterranean heritage to its influx of younger, non-European residents, without alienating the Euro crowds that populate the more established cafes on 30th Avenue.

The largely Italian menu features well-selected glimpses of personality beyond red sauce: chicken with fontina and figs, pasta with red beet mascarpone. Its standard dishes please -- we've tried a variety of salads at Locale, and the gnocchi, a dish often overcooked and made gummy even in supposedly schooled hands, was toothsome without being chewy or mushy. Vegetarian options abound on the pasta panini menu (and the salad menu too, if you're content with goat cheese, which Locale heavily relies on to bulk up the salads). We stuck with a (slightly overpriced) bottle of wine, but the cocktail list is primed to please -- pineapple mojitos and martinis abound. (We'll forgive Locale the unfortunately named "Panty Dropper.")

More than the food, though, Locale is the rare place that allows one to feel like you're out on the town without being thrust into a crowded joint with thumping music and attitude. Sure, the large-scaled images of nudes in the fetal position are a bit much, but they're not really in-your-face, and the rest of the glass-and-wrought-iron decor is low-key and classic enough to make up for it. Best of all, we could hear both our conversation and the music, which on our recent Friday night visit included the greatest hits of Michael Jackson.

Locale's website claims the restaurant reflects "the neighborhood's modern yet multicultural chic aspect, which has become a signature of present-day Astoria." We wish more places had a clear-cut mission statement, perhaps printed on their business cards -- not so much so we can evaluate them based on the description, but on how close the proprietors come to achieving their goal. In this case, it's a match.

Price: Entrees in the mid-teens.
Will we go again? Seems to suit our mood when we want to go out for a low-key night on the town.

It's a Cafe! And a Bar! (Cafe Bar, 32-90 36th Street)

Cafe Bar was one of the handful of establishments that prompted Time Out to proclaim Astoria "The New Bohemia" on its cover in 2000. Regardless of the truth of that statement, the consciously quirky Cafe Bar back then was a sort of outpost for the young hipsters who were said to be slowly populating the area.

When we first went there, around the same time as that cover story, we felt like we were missing something. Sure, the Mona Lisa rice curtain and retro couches spoke to us more than the surly, nicotine-heavy outdoor tables at, say, Athens Cafe -- but the menu wasn't much different. It was Euro-style cafe fare: Greek salads, light sandwiches graced with feta, and frappes. Maybe the odd nutella crepe as well. But we were willing to chalk it up to us, not them -- surely we'd just overlooked a page of the menu.

Now that Astoria has a handful of places that could prompt another Time Out cover story (yet again touting Astoria's arrival on the desirable neighborhood list), it's clear that Cafe Bar was never quite lived up to what the boosters were so eager to claim for it. Once you have absorbed the "zany" rummage-sale decor, there's just not a whole lot, menu-wise, to set it apart from any other Greek or Cypriot cafe in the neighborhood, though the fresh-juice bar is a nice variant from the long coffee lists at those other establishments. The vibe is indeed funky in its own way, with 1960s-style chandeliers, pop wall decor, and a one-of-a-kind Salinger-themed bathroom (this alone makes it worth one visit). But any college town in America has a place with this feel: the objets d'art carefully selected to feel whimsically random, the DJ nights, the friendly but not particularly efficient waitstaff. Salads, sandwiches, crepes -- all well-priced, all fitting our nutritional needs, all tasty enough to make us clean our plates. But Astoria has many places that go above and beyond the basics of just-fine food preparation.

Reviewers on other sites claim to feel "at home" at Cafe Bar. But it's hard for us to feel at home amid such forced quirkiness. We feel as though we're at the apartment of a twentysomething struggling to find her identity, sitting among a bizarre array of hard plastic chairs and overstuffed couches. (It should be noted, too, that we're not a fan of dining on couches. You're so sunken that you can't talk to anyone other than who is beside you on the couch; you have to keep leaning over to pick up your drink or food -- essentially, you're more uncomfortable than you would be at a plain old table with chairs. So what then is the point?)

We understand Cafe Bar's appeal. It's more or less fairly priced, the food is fine, it doesn't have a problem with patrons nursing a drink on one of those infernal couches. In these respects, it's a quintessential cafe, and maybe that's what makes it problematic for us. Cafe culture isn't eating culture: It's for people who wish to see and be seen. We appreciate that this can foster a sense of community, and perhaps the perpetually arriving new bohemians of Astoria have found their home at Cafe Bar. (It serves as a pickup spot for the Astoria CSA, so that's fully possible.) Maybe we're just not "new" enough, or bohemian enough, to gel with the Cafe Bar vibe -- but we suspect that those who are hoping to find something truly bohemian here will be disappointed.

Price: Fine. Not crazy like some of the other tavernas.
Will we go again? We'd prefer a cafe or a bar to this Cafe Bar.

Club Med: 30th Avenue (Grand Café; 37-01 30th Avenue)

We had always been somewhat intimidated by Astoria's innumerable Euro-style cafes, where the emphasis seems to be more on supplying patrons with a table on the sidewalk at which to relax and drink iced coffee than anything having to do with food. To be sitting squinting in the sun amid bus exhaust and gawking passersby isn't our idea of an appealing way to fritter away an afternoon, and moreover, the culture at these places seemed to us insular and inhospitable. If you aren't of Mediterranean extraction, or aren't to the manner of al fresco lounging born, then you are likely to stick out and feel alienated at these cafes, waiting for some insight into their appeal that never comes.

We were so generally freaked out by the Euro cafes that we considered crafting a loophole that would exempt them from our campaign, but we decided that this would be against the spirit of the mission. After all, we would grossly distort the nature of the neighborhood if we left them out. So on the first warm day of the year, we thought we would ease into the scene with a brunch at Grand Café, a recent addition and seemingly one of the more approachable of the places. The interior was dark and vast. Behind the bar, at which little red-velvet ottomans were lined up in lieu of bar stools, was an enormous aquarium with tropical fish. The thumping music was a little nightclubby for brunchtime, but the early-afternoon baseball on the big flat-screen TVs mitigated the Euro vibe.

After a brief, disorienting moment, we were seated in a liminal space at the edge of the interior, next to a retractable wall that opened out onto the sidewalk. We were close enough to feel a breeze and believe we were part of café society, but not close enough to be choking on fumes and the stares of bystanders. To our delight, we were immediately brought water, in a corked liter bottle that the busser pulled out from his apron, and better still, mini-muffins, surprisingly moist and warm, albeit a little greasy. And different flavors too -- some were raisin bran, some were apple, some blueberry. The coffee, when it came, was served with a chocolate-filled rolled wafer, a welcome touch that left a positive impression well out of proportion with what it probably cost them.

We ordered eggs benedict -- a good brunch benchmark -- and the caprese frittata. The eggs benedict were what you'd want, well poached and not overly slathered with Hollandaise, and more important, they were brought promptly. The frittata was mostly indistinguishable from the omelet we ordered on a subsequent visit, which was indistinguishable from slightly overcooked scrambled eggs with various items thrown in. But to find an actual omelet or an actual frittata in most places (Astoria and elsewhere) is a high order -- the dish tasted good and was served with a mesclun salad that was more generous than it needed to be to please us.

So there was nothing to be afraid of after all. The truth is, the prevalence of the cafes makes them extremely competitive, meaning the service is attentive even if the food is not particularly distinctive. Sitting amid the Euros, we felt a little as though we had gone on vacation and were making the best of a resort amenity. Reclining in our semi-chaise longues, we felt like we had finally arrived.

Price: Good value for brunch, $10 per person.
Will we go again? Currently tied with Cronin & Phelan for repeat visits. We often have to remind ourselves there are other brunch options, because this place is just so easy.

Tea for Two (Himalaya Teahouse, 33-17 31st Avenue)

We were both under the weather and were in the mood for maybe a restorative tea and some good hot broth. It seemed a tall order to find these both at the same restaurant, until we remembered the Himalaya Teahouse on 31st Avenue, which seems to exist to expressly cater to such a combination as we desired. Quaintly decorated outside with bamboo where you'll often find aluminum siding, the tea house inside is spare, with a few rugs hanging on the walls, which are painted a solid, soothing blue.

On the afternoon we visited, the teahouse was a two-woman operation, one cooking and one preparing the teas and waiting on the tables. This didn't make for the most efficient arrangement, but it certainly made things feel homey, and there weren't enough patrons in the restaurant for anyone to become truly neglected. The tea selection, as one would expect, is elaborate -- and the menu copy is full of inexplicable names for the teas but mercifully light on mystical mumbo jumbo.

To eat, we had thukpa, which was the yearned-for broth with what appeared to be hand-shaved noodles and boiled beef (we had ordered chicken, but alas), and momos, which are tasty Tibetan dumplings, also in broth. We may have found these a little bland under normal circumstances, but (a) the food of the Himalayas is meant to fortify, not enchant, and (b) we couldn't taste much through the late-winter cold plaguing our sinuses. What the food was lacking in pep, it made up for in delicacy, a feat considering we were eating beef with noodles and dumplings.

Where Himalaya Teahouse shines, unsurprisingly, is the teas. One of us was further along in our shared viral infection than the other, prompting one order of the Black Velvet, a mint-licorice tea that's supposed to encourage recuperation; the sicker one between us went with Fellini's Folly, a rooibos-mint blend designed for those in the thick of a cold. Andrew Weill and the FDA can battle it out as to whether the teas actually helped us recuperate, but they tasted good regardless of their health benefits. (What the "Really Goethe" lemon myrtle-jasmine-gunpowder blend is supposed to do, we have no idea, but we're not up on our Sturm und Drang.)



We've seen the restaurant floated on Astoria message boards as a late-night hangout, as they serve a handful of international beers and wines. We understand the impulse to have a beer in a setting other than a bar, but we can't imagine coming here to kick back a brewski. Forgive us for painting the Himalaya Teahouse in shades of Orientalism, but we prefer to come here for a sense of calm, a pot of Fellini's Folly, and the best momos in town.

Price: Under $12 for food. Around $5 for pots of tea.
Will we go again? Where else would we get our momo fix? Yes, especially when befallen with illness.