In a competition to crown the hardest-working woman in Queens, Helen Faroupos would be a serious contender. It is her favor you must curry in order to get a table—not to mention something to eat—at Astoria Seafood, where she serves as both the hostess and the only waitress. By 6 P.M. on a recent Saturday, the nightly test of her resolve was well under way, as the place teemed with pushy patrons, desperate to catch her eye. They wanted seats, they wanted seafood, they wanted Greek salad and extra forks and bottled water. In the middle of the madness, she looked up from her notepad and said, “Oh my God, I’m getting dizzy!” Someone flicked a light switch off and on for a strobelike effect. A male voice hollered “Opa!” and the room erupted in cheers.
Queens is often cited as the most diverse of the city’s boroughs, and the demographic cross-section on display at Astoria Seafood, which has been owned for three generations by the same Greek family, is straight out of a political-campaign ad. People of all ages, ethnicities, and economic brackets are drawn by a powerful common denominator: fresh fish, prepared simply and sold at a fraction of what it costs almost anywhere else. Here’s a foursome of Rag & Bone-wearing, chopstick-wielding Japanese hipsters, picking at a dense and meaty grilled mackerel; there’s a group of cheerful Turks pouring shots of raki and feasting on fried calamari. “It’s like jury duty,” marvelled a bespectacled young white guy, as a pair of middle-aged African-American women eyed his empty plate, looking hopeful that he might soon vacate his table.
Once just a retailer and wholesaler, the operation expanded into restaurant territory after moving from Astoria to Long Island City, several years ago. After jostling for a spot on Helen’s list, diners must elbow their way to the glistening piles of fish on ice at the back of the room. There’s a box of clear plastic bags, to be used both as gloves to scoop up whatever looks best—Caribbean snapper, river trout, scallops, super-jumbo shrimp—and for carrying the haul to the cashier’s counter, where it’s weighed, flung into a metal bowl, and added to the cooking queue. The options are few: grilled in olive oil and fresh herbs, or breaded and fried. It’s hard to go wrong. Aside from the bountiful Greek salad and some satisfyingly run-of-the-mill garlic bread, side dishes—soupy platters of lemon potatoes, pasta salad with imitation crab—tend not to materialize. Helen can only do so much. And so what? On a recent evening, a diner inquiring after a couple of missing king-crab legs was met with the kind of response that embodies the place: “Oh, sorry about that. The kitchen forgot. It’s O.K.” ♦
Open Mondays through Saturdays for lunch and dinner. Seafood sold by the pound at market prices.
