The Restaurant I Ate at Last Night XXV

I'm in New York City for the first few days this week to confblog Ad:Tech for Fast Company Now and MarketingWonk. The New York City Marathon was today, so the hotel is relatively crowded, and a lot of people are wearing marathon windbreakers. I can hear and feel the elevators running near my room -- at first I mistook it for the subway.

In any event, I walked a couple of blocks away from the hotel to grab dinner at a neighboorhood. The Astro Restaurant has been in operation since 1980 and blends the best of old-school diner fare with sit-down restaurant comfort. With a staff wearing dress shirts and ties and dark-upholstered booths, the restaurant feels more formal than it might, but the menu is anything but fancy. About $15 got me a salami sandwich with Swiss cheese, lettuce, and tomato on toasted rye and a bottle of Sam Adams. While the sandwich came with a paper cup of coleslaw and a pickle that was more pickled than most diner pickles I like, I missed the presence of potato chips or French fries. But that's the Astro: Comfortable, unpretentious, but a step above the basics.