Astor Bake Shop

...is located in NYC's borough of Queens at 12-23 Astoria Blvd. in Astoria. Ths new bake shop and cafe is bright and airy. When I visited the menu was limited and the service was a little haphazard.

I had the Astor Burger with lettuce, tomato, spicy Astor sauce, cheese, thick slices of apple wood smoke bacon for $10.50. I wasn't given the choice of 2 or 4 slices of bacon. I received 4 (for $1.75), but 2 (fro $1.00) would have been adequate. It was missing the creamy coleslaw and pickle. My burger was served on a Portugese roll (they didn't offer me a choice between this and the wheat roll).

I also had a homemade "salt" lemonade for $2.75...true to the name it was salty! Too salty for me.

But I balanced it out with a Lemon Meringue tart for $3.50 which was perfection! The tart was nice and flaky, the lemon filling was slightly tart and sweet and the meringue was lightly browned.

Grilling

Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria - NYC's borough of Queens offered a free adult workshop: Cooking with Fire with The Brooklyn Kitchen and Meat Hook on 6/20. This offered tips on how to grill meets and vegetables.

Harold from The Meat Hook was on hand to discuss how to light the grill, placement of the foods, preparing foods for grilling and, of course, the grilling of foods.

He grilled Mexican chorizo sausages, marinated chicken legs and thighs, a 5 lb "Man steak", squash and portabello mushrooms. And then attendees were allowed to sample all the finished foods. Everything was delicious!