Shelley P.

It was a Saturday night. before Halloween We were in Astoria and were going to go to The Bohemian Beer Garden but it was a total mess with screaming kids and wasted teenagers we couldn’t find a server. It was loud and crowded! Yeesh. So we did a Google search for a place to eat in the area and just a few blocks down we were able to find this lovely oasis of peace and delicious food. We were there earlier and missed the music which would have been fun.

A lovely park with plenty of seats and frequent free live music events. There’s a big romantic fountain, a carousel , lots of kiosks with coffee, and booths with people selling crafts. There’s also an ice skating rink in the winter.

It’s a mall. This review is for Simply Fresh on the ground floor as soon as you enter the mall on Queens Blvd. They have sandwiches, pastry and coffee, also delicious ice cream. I had the Strawberry Cream which was out of this world! Reasonable prices and the gal that served me was so friendly, attentive and kind. Will be returning.

We had a really nice time at this botanic garden. It’s smaller than the Brooklyn botanic garden and much more manageable to cover in an afternoon. It also seemed to have more plants in bloom for some reason. I loved the quaintness of it and seemed more like a neighborhood place than the larger gardens in the city. Most beautiful hibiscus bushes I’ve ever seen. Only downside is there are two lovely gardens that are off limits and that was disappointing. They were the Children’s Garden and the Wedding Garden. Cute little gift shop with reasonable prices. Lots of shaded places to sit and lovely fountains and koi!

Update: we came back again and everything was absolutely Dee lish. Had my fave again and it was da bomb! Black bean burger and sweet potato fries with limoncello cake for dessert. Lemoncello was light and fluffy and not overly sweet.