November 29, 2024
We’ve seen this restaurant Hamido Seafood on social media all over the place. Like many Astoria restaurants, they pride themselves in having the freshest seafood, and they are somewhat close to Taverna Kyclades down the street. We went to the original Hamido Seafood restaurant at 4 PM on a Saturday late afternoon, and we were lucky to be seated right away before the crowds came. They are located very close to the N/W train off the Ditmars train stop.
September 1, 2024
The Long Island City area around Queensboro Plaza is definitely missing some Vietnamese restaurants. We’ve been to Cyclo, and it was very mediocre. Since Knock Knock closed down, this family-owned restaurant from Flushing took over the location. We were able to stop by around 5 PM on a Sunday early evening without reservations. There was no one eating, and we asked to sit at the same bar that was located at Knock Knock.
August 10, 2024
Rice Thief is one of the few Korean raw marinated crab restaurants in New York City. The focus of this restaurant is to provide deeply marinated raw crabs with lots of seasoning in it. To the surprise of many, the raw crab meat is actually a little gooey but quite flavorful. My partner saw this restaurant on Instagram and expressed interest in trying this out, despite me wanting to avoid bringing them here.
July 28, 2024
Jing Li has been opened for a few years now in this location. It actually used to be a different Chinese restaurant, so I’m assuming it’s the same owners. The menu looks very typical of non Sichuan Chinese restaurants. Before we walked in, I already decided to go more of a pescatarian selection and hoping the food quality and taste would be similar to what I’ve had before in the San Gabriel Valley.
July 20, 2024
Han Dynasty is yet another Chinese restaurant that recently joined the Long Island City area. They already have some existing locations spread around other parts of NYC. Their food is the same Sichuan style that many of the local restaurants here aim to serve. I think this style of Chinese is becoming too plentiful here, such that competition is bound to be very difficult. We decided to try this out.
July 5, 2024
Whenever we go to Food Bazaar, we always frequent the area right across Northern Blvd to see what other restaurants might be decent. Some highlights around here include: [Pig Beach BBQ]({{ relref “pig-beach-bbq” }}) and SVL Souvlaki Bar. I saw that there’s this little quaint Spanish restaurant Cafe OlĂ© even closer to the market, so we checked this place out. We were able to walk in without reservations around 3 PM on a Friday afternoon.
June 1, 2024
Long Island City is basically turning into an upscale, modern day Flushing-type environment. There has been a recent surge in the last few years of Asian restaurants popping up all over the place. Close to the popular Vernon Blvd area is a fermentation studio called “Little Banchan Shop”. They sell little Korean side dishes. The owner decided to open a restaurant in the back, Meju. We were able to get reservations a month in advance on Tock for 7 PM on a Saturday evening.
April 27, 2024
Due to a slew of Chinese spicy restaurants opening up in the Long Island City neighborhood, this was one that caught our attention. Jiang Nan has several locations spread around the tri-state areas and more, and the Flushing location even received a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The restaurant advertises itself as Asian fusion, but I noticed many of the restaurant ingredients were definitely more Chinese centric. We were able to walk in at 5 PM without reservations for 2 on a Saturday evening.
April 20, 2024
Fer is a nearby neighborhood restaurant that has similar spicy features comparable to other Chinese restaurants around the area. I’m a big fan of little shops because it usually means you can get your food pretty fast, and it feels casual. We stopped by late Saturday afternoon, and there was hardly anyone there. We were seated right away, and the food came out very fast. The menu has a lot of chili oil in all of their items, but luckily the spice was tolerable when ordered mild.
April 13, 2024
Red Sorghum has recently opened in Long Island City, and is yet another spicy Chinese restaurant. It seems that there are quite a few around Long Island City. This location replaced the closed Penny Bridge. Because this was really close to our place and we were meeting friends, we decided on this restaurant to try different dishes. They proud themselves in baijiu, which is China’s liquor to Korean soju. There are several cocktails made with them if you’re interested.