Friday Night

Last night Barb and I took Jennie out for her birthday. I won't tell you which birthday we were celebrating :)

Jen had a reservation at Philoxenia in Astoria. We found a parking spot close by and walked in. The bar area was empty and only 2 tables were taken in the dining room, yet when we asked to sit at a table with banquette seating, we were told "that's a table for 4." Yes, we are 3 people and we cannot sit at a table for 2 can we? So we have to sit at a table for 4. We were directed to a table in the the far corner against the wall. We asked to sit at a table near the center of the room in front of the fireplace. Not sure if they were too happy about that, but we sat down anyway.


They brought us menus which we perused for almost 20 minutes before the waitress came over. She prepared to take our order when we asked her for the wine list. But NO, they lost their liquor license for about 3-4 days and they cannot serve, sell, offer or let you drink your own. I asked Jen if they had confirmed her reservation earlier in the day and yes, they had, but neglected to say they were a dry restaurant.

We discussed the pros and cons of not having wine with a birthday celebration and we decided to stay anyway. However, after another 10 minutes of being ignored in an almost empty dining room, we got up and left.

Lo and behold, on the way out, at that banquette table for 4, were 3 people having appetizers.

Suffice it to say that Philoxenia is on my list. And that's NOT a good thing. My list is a boycott list (very similar to Joe's list).

In the car we went, Jen drove to Mezzo Mezzo where we had a great dinner of sharing appetizers, sharing wine and sharing friendship.

I thought the grilled octopus was a bit fishy, but the spinach pie, the cold dips, the horiatiki (country Greek salad) and the fruit crepe with nutella and chocolate were very good. The service was good too. Upstairs was a band "Spitfire" playing classic rock and roll. So we enjoyed listening to that too.

A nice evening with friends!