My Big Fat Seafood Disaster

Everytime I get off the subway at Ditmars and walk to Ben’s house, I pass Taverna Kyclades, a little seafood place in Astoria. And no matter what time we walk by, this place is always crowded. So last Thursday, we decided to try it.

While there was a line at 9:30 at night, being a table for 2 we quickly got seated. No sooner were we in our seats, a plate of lemons were delivered to us to enhance the flavor of our seafood. Per usual, we started with fried calamari, Ben ordered grilled baby shark, and I ordered broiled scallops. I was a little disappointed when I looked at the side dishes that came with the entrees. Choices were lemon potatoes (that did not look appetizing when I looked at the table next to ours), fried potatoes, rice, horta (had to ask the waitress what this was and did not sound appealing) and beets (I don’t eat beets at Holiday meals so these definitely were eliminated). So this left me with rice and fried potatoes, which Ben and I decided to share.

Calamari arrived and was okay, a little chewier than I like. We definitely wanted more marinara sauce and tried to call over the waitress and flag her down, but with little luck. Maybe she wasn’t intentionally ignoring us though, but rather just simply couldn’t hear us. The place was really loud and I felt like I was in a scene of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Now I have a big family and both my Italian and Irish sides can get loud, but this was at a volume I’ve never experienced. Maybe it wasn’t the whole restaurant and rather just the table of ladies next to me, one of which yelled and debated with the others for at least twenty minutes if she was born with straight or curly hair. Yup, it was that type of environment. I almost didn’t want to talk to Ben because a) he probably couldn’t hear me and b) I really was curious if this woman’s hair was naturally straight.

The seafood came out and while the portion was big, the food was just okay. The sides were extremely unappetizing. I like rice, but a bite of this rice with carrots in it really did nothing for me, so I decided to fill up on the scallops instead. While the scallops were great with lemon over them, all the dish consisted of were broiled scallops. No bread crumbs, nothing fancy. It was just scallops and lemon. While it was good, on the rare occasion I cook, I’ve made that exact dish before. When I go to a restaurant, I want something that gives it an extra kick.

The grilled baby shark tasted the same way - nothing extra, no seasoning, just tasted like grilled white fish. I tried the fried potatoes too and it lacked flavor. I poured on the salt, and tried to make fries the Canadian way with vinegar, but it just wasn’t worth the effort.

We waited a while to get our check from the waitress, despite flagging her down. Maybe again it was because by this time, the table next to me was loudly debating which countries were actually in both World Wars. Once we got the bill - which wasn’t cheap, with the scallops at $20 and the shark at nearly $15 - we also asked to take the leftovers home just in case we didn’t want to spend money on lunch the next day.

Now I’m a sucker for leftovers and when I’m home at my parents’ house, will eat any leftovers in the fridge, regardless who got the meal at the restaurant. The next afternoon, Ben and I didn’t even want the leftovers, that’s how unappetizing the meal was. We did heat up the scallops and baby shark, and the only thing we finished were the scallops. After a few bites of the shark and feeling like I was licking a grill, rather than eating shark, it quickly made its way to the garbage with the potatoes and rice.

And to the table next to us, if you are reading this - these two Web sites can help you figure out who was in WWI and WWII.