7.05.2011

Elias' Corner - Greek - $$$

Website (Astoria)

Everyone raves about this seafood restaurant for being the best in Astoria. I'm upset that my experience at this restaurant did not live up to the great hype that Elias' Corner gets. It's the kind of seafood restaurant you want to go to. There is no menu, there is just a display case filled with the fresh catches of the day. You basically go and pick out the fish you want and how you want it cooked: grilled or fried.

My friend and I however, had a different experience. We went on a Friday afternoon, and the service was awful. We started with salad, oysters, grilled octopus and the taramosalata (caviar spread). The oysters were a huge disappointment. They tasted bland and dry, and barely had any texture; it's like they were lifeless. I never had such a bad oyster before, which was so surprising, given that we were at a seafood restaurant. Then the grilled octopus, one of my favorite Greek dishes to get at a Greek restaurant, was the worst of them all. Totally charred on the outside, it had nothing but a burnt flavor, and was mushy and gooey on the inside- totally undercooked. Clearly, whoever made the dish had no idea how to prepare it. I complained to the waitress who only offered to take it back to cook it some more. Cooking it more would make it taste more burnt. How was that a solution? I explained this, and told her that it was not prepared correctly and that burning it more would not make it taste less burnt. All she said was "I don't know." She was so unaccommodating that we just asked for the check (she did not remove the bad dish from the bill) and left.







I wish this was a better experience for me, but I will definitely go back and try the seafood that the place is famous for. No octopus or oysters next time!

We spent $35 for just the appetizers.

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