Go to Butcher Bar for the barbecue, and go back again for the barbecue you missed the first time. Just don't miss any of the excellent housemade sausage on either of your mandatory visits. Smoked meat may take center stage here, but the tender, highly seasoned sausage in a snappy casing is really a beautiful thing. Butcher Bar rotates their sausage selection daily, but you can usually find sweet and hot (my favorite) Italian sausages in the display case. More

I kept hearing whispers from Indonesians, well-fed travelers, and fellow New York food explorers that the city's best Indonesian food can be found at an Indonesian mosque in Astoria, where a bazaar sets up in the warmer months. I haven't eaten broadly enough to know if that's true, but after this weekend's bazaar I can easily say this was the best Indonesian food I've ever had. I ate plenty of "Best X's of My Life," and even more dishes I've never seen or heard of before, all of which ranged from excellent to outstanding. More

The harissa mustard that lightly dresses the shredded chicken is downright addictive—not too hot, but just tantalizing enough to keep you coming back for more. Like its fattier, lambier menu neighbor, the bread for this sandwich is a foot-long baguette from Balthazar Bakery. More

Astoria has one of the world's largest Greek populations outside of Greece itself. When doing research into these restaurants, one name kept popping up: Agnanti Meze. More

Four flavors ($4 a piece) are available daily. Ground beef and cheese are the traditional options, but there's also the more modern apple and recently introduced jumari varieties. More

For the unfamiliar, figuring out exactly what you want to buy at Muncan Food Corp can be a bit like playing "Where's Waldo?" with drunk goggles. We've put together this guide, which features all of Muncan's bacons as well as our other favorite products. More

There's nothing casual about the Merguez Aiolissa ($7.95), a foot-long lamb sausage with spicy mayo on a lean baguette from Balthazar Bakery. The tender merguez comes in a snappy casing that gives way to a well-spiced interior, with strong notes of cumin, coriander, and wily harissa. More

On an otherwise nondescript stretch of Broadway in Astoria, Muncan is a food haven, a veritable cornucopia of house-cured and -smoked meats. Most famous for its intimidating selection of quality bacon, Muncan has become something of a Queens institution for Eastern European charcuterie. More

Butcher Bar is ready to satisfy New York's unabashed love of pork belly. The sustainable meat heads' pork belly, lettuce and tomato sandwich ($10.99 with slaw and pickle) starts with a quality slab of belly from a naturally raised pig. More

Unlike its Brooklyn smokehouse neighbors Fette Sau and Fatty 'Cue, which also tout responsibly sourced, high quality meat, Butcher Bar is designed to be a butcher shop first and a restaurant second. As it happens, barbecue was added to encourage thrifty Astorian locals to pay a little more for non-industrial meat. It's a hell of a carrot to complement an already carrot-like stick. More

Unlike other Greek "X-pitas," halloumopita is made with yeasted dough—not a flaky phyllo wrapper—that holds chunks of filling. The inclusion of cilantro takes this decidedly out of "Greek food we're used to" territory, but it's the perfect compliment to lightly sweet onions and meaty chunks of chewy, salty halloumi. More

Nothing about this place says romance, at least not in a traditional sense. But if we've learned one thing in the year we've been writing this column, it's that there are as many types of dates, and types of romance, as there are restaurants in New York City. MexiQ is fun, and best for: a boisterous, boozy date. More

Astoria is a friendly, comfortable, and affordable place to live, but above all else, it's a place to eat. The fare probably isn't what you grew up with, but it doesn't take long to start eating like a true blue Greek/Italian/Egyptian/Serbian/Latin American/who knows what else. Seriously, the amount of ethnic food here is staggering. Go forth with a sense of adventure and you'll be richly rewarded with a polyglot dining scene growing in every direction at once. More

For years, the only place in New York to enjoy a legit plate of burnt ends was Righteous Urban Barbecue. Thanks to Long Island City's John Brown Smokehouse, barbecue lovers in the big city have a new source for this Kansas City classic. More

If possible, sit in the white-washed side room. Banish thoughts of debt, Greek or American, as you dip the bread into the olive oil, and concentrate on Epicureanism. Pleasure might be the greatest good, for a few hours anyway. Listening closely, you might even hear waves. Bahari Estiatorio is best for: a date with someone you'd like to sail away with. More