The last time I had dinner in Astoria was about six years ago. (I know—inexcusable.) I was dating a guy who is second generation Egyptian. We had been talking about visiting Little Egypt on Steinway Street for ages. So one year, on his birthday, we went to Mombar (25-22 Steinway Street), an authentic Egyptian place we had heard wonderful things about. We had a great night—we loved chef-owner Moustafa El Sayed, we loved the place, the homestyle food, and at the time, we really loved eachother.
Now the former love of my life is the love of someone else’s life. I found out last month. I was at the opening of Dani restaurant, and I ran into a tactless friend of his, who basically came up to me at this party and said, “So are you married?” I don’t recall if there was even a polite greeting or salutation. It was just, “So, are you married?” I was not sure what he was getting at, but I replied, “No,” and sort of laughed and tried to walk away. He didn’t let me. He kept going, chasing me with his words: “Well you know (insert name of the former love of my life) got married.” I felt like someone had simultaneously kicked me in the soft part of my gut and thrown a bucket of cold water over my head. I shivered. “No, I didn’t know that,” I said, and again I tried to extricate myself, but he was relentless. “Yeah, he got married. I was at the wedding. I did the flowers.” (This friend is a florist.) At this point I told him how great it was to catch up, and quickly turned around and walked straight to the bar, afraid he was going to whip out wedding photos of the happy couple in the next breath.

There were tears in my eyes, and I really just wanted to disappear. Having an emotional breakdown at a restaurant opening was not on my list of things to do for the week. As I stood there, gulping down a glass of red, trying to make the tears go away, a guy I knew came over to the bar to say Hello. I guess the tears were still there. He put his arm around me. “Come on, is the food really that bad?” (For the record, the food was great.) He gave my shoulder a squeeze. I started to breath again. We both laughed. In a few moments, I felt better, but still made a break for a nearby bar with some friends shortly thereafter.

I am very happy for the former love of my life. (Truly, I am. I am not just saying this to sound well adjusted. You all already know I am far from it.) Really, he was, and still is, an amazing man. And life goes on—quite brilliantly at times, in fact. But what I really don’t understand is people who feel they must update you on the intimate details of the lives of your former soul mates? Note to all people who do this sort of thing: We really don’t want to know. And even if we do want to know, we don’t want to be told at cocktail parties. Please.

So, anyway, back to the matter at hand here—my return to Astoria. Last week, with my girls Jamie and Alison in tow, we ventured back to pay a visit to Christos, a newly redesigned and reconcepted Greek steakhouse where Mina Newman is the consulting chef.

The restaurant, an Astoria landmark since 1974, was born as Christos Hasapo Taverna and was re-designed re-concepted as Christos Steakhouse by new owners Allan Wartski and George Stergiopoulos in January of this year. The entranceway is lined in glass butcher cases displaying flanks of dry-aged Prime beef like mammoth baubles in a Tiffany window. Past the beef exhibit, the bar and lounge feels vaguely like an fancy airport bar somewhere in the Midwest, with flat screen TVs, and round cocktail tables with rose-colored armchair seating. The restaurant is contemporary and suburban in feel, with too-bright lighting, large floral arrangements, and lots of marble. Tables are dressed in white tablecloths and waiters in starched white dinner jackets emblazoned with the restaurant’s name. Tucked into a banquette, staring out onto the dining room from behind an oversized table for four, I knew I was not in Kansas anymore. The crowd is straight out of central casting for The Sopranos: Greece Edition. We heard lots of Greek spoken, and little English except at tables of the few groups of out of towners, over from the Marriott at LaGuardia airport. It was quite a scene. I loved it.

The menu mirrors the cross section represented in the dining room, some authentic Greek dishes, and mixed in with some American steak. The owners wanted to stay true to their Greek roots, which they do in the appetizers and mezze, but also wanted to continue the tradition of great steakhouses. Mina Newman, a chef whom I have admired since her days at Layla, was a natural choice for this juxtaposition—she was the chef at Dylan Prime, the steakhouse in Tribeca, and has worked with Greek ingredients during her tenure at Layla, and at Thalassa where she was the general manager. She’s been out of the restaurant kitchen for a while, working on her own catering business (www.boutiquecatering.com), but lucky for us, she came back to create the menu for Christos, and will stay on through the end of April.

We started with some fried zucchini and eggplant, sliced into thin chips in a crisp but fluffy golden batter and a creamy tzatziki dipping sauce ($10). It was the perfect snack to order while perusing the menu. (A basket of thick-cut sliced loaves of bread with kalamata dip is served gratis.)

Since we are suckers for Greek dips and pita, we went for the family style platter of Taramasolata, Tzatziki, and roasted eggplant spreads ($12)—all bright and zippy with fresh herbs and a good dose of garlic—served with puffy rounds of hot pita, marked from the grill, shimmering with olive oil. The Kobe Steak Tartar ($12) is a recipe for diehard carnivores (moi, for instance). It is a giant mound of garnet steak hand cut into a glistening dice that gives it great texture. The beef is amply seasoned with salt, pepper, capers, onions, and Dijon mustard, and is topped with a little raw quail egg in its shell that I spooned out and mixed into the tartar, before topping my crostini with a healthy forkful. Then I went back for more. Alison doesn’t eat meat, a boon for Jamie and me.

The Chopped Salad ($14) was fabulous. It is a wildly generous portion (the first courses are oversized and meant to be shared family style) of fresh crunchy chopped vegetables—scallions, cucumbers, red onion, watercress, radishes, and tomatoes, and green beans, tossed with chopped egg and crispy bits of smoky bacon. A nice option that Mina offers is that every salad can be turned into a more substantial meal with a topper of petit filet, yellowfin tuna, shrimp, chicken or lobster tail ($12-$14).

The entrée section of the menu strolls away from Greece and walks confidently into the realm of the American steakhouse. Actually, there is a slight tip of the hand to Greece in side dishes like sautéed spinach with feta, and baked orzo with Kefalograviera cheese ($6), but otherwise, you are in the midst of cowboy heaven. The steak list includes a massive Porterhouse for two (48-ounces, $67), or for three (63-ounces $88), a Fred Flintstone-styled T-Bone (24-ounces, $29) and my choice, a New York Strip (18-ounces, $26). Jamie and I shared the strip, which was gigantic. It was perfectly cooked to medium rare, with a salty lip-licking char, and a pink center that was juicy but with a good amount of chew and texture. All in all, an impressive slab. Alison went the fish route with a whole snapper ($M/P) that was served deboned and sliced open like a book. It was a simple Mediterranean preparation—fresh herbs, and a squeeze of lemon over a sheen of olive oil. Not rocket science, but quite satisfying. Sides ($6) were uniformly great, other than the crispy taters, which tasted like something from a Passover potato kugel recipe gone bad. But I loved the salt-baked fingerlings, little creamy potatoes melting inside their salty jackets, and the sautéed spinach with feta was an inspired new combination that I am going to repeat at home.

Desserts ($8) are hit—thick and creamy Greek yogurt toasted walnuts and quince jam, a wonderful spiced panna cotta with a crunchy almond tuille—or miss—a dry tasteless slab of chocolate layer cake.

As we made our way out of the restaurant, the back room was still filled to capacity with tables of extra large, extra hungry men gorging on plates of chops, steaks, and game birds paired with copious orders of fries. I was tempted to sit down and have a few, they looked (and smelled) so good. But we had done enough eating, I suppose, and it was time to go. Our car was outside, waiting to take us home.

As we crossed the Tri-Borough Bridge and sped down an empty FDR Drive, I thought about my second trip to Astoria. It was very different from my first. This time, I was not with the man I thought would be my husband, eating way too much Egyptian food, drinking red wine and toasting to years of happy birthdays together in the future. This time, I was with some of my closest friends, eating way too much Greek food, drinking cold Mythos beer and toasting to our adventures in Astoria, and beyond. The thing is, I will always cherish my past, even when it catches up to me by surprise at cocktail parties. We've all got ghosts, baggage, residue from relationship's past. And once in a while, I look in the rear view and see what's back there. But last week, driving home from Astoria, in this place called the present, I was looking straight ahead.

Christos Steakhouse is located at 41-08 23rd Avenue, Astoria, 718-777-8400.

Andrea Strong