Astoria Seafood is always busy, but it’s still our top choice for a pick-your-own-seafood party in Astoria. From open to close, the fluorescent-lit, cafeteria-like room buzzes with BYOB birthdays, three-generation family gatherings, and people making casual meals out of round after round of fried, blackened, and grilled seafood. The family-run Greek restaurant started as a wholesale fish company and retail market in 1993, before opening a sit-down spot in 2012. We’d call it a New York City rite of passage, similar to eating a slice of pizza standing on the sidewalk. The undisputed best part of a meal here is right at the beginning, when you and your friends slip plastic bags over your hands and grab whole red snappers, fistfuls of sardines, and debate the number of scallops you need. Continue until you have amassed an amount of seafood that might shock you, but will never shock the person behind the counter. After that, a gruff but effective server helps you find a table under a blue ceiling with sea creatures painted on it. You might sit next to a baby, sleeping soundly on a chair while her parents work through a plate of grilled shrimp. If you stay late enough, you’ll get to be there for the last hurrah, when they turn the music up, and groups of uncles finishing up their last six-packs wave paper napkins around as a closing salute.