Elite Event: Front Toward Enemy

Astoria! Great place for a Unilocal event! Jando, great choice to host an event. The staff was great, food was plentiful and delicious, drinks good as well.
Between all the skewers, burgers, chicken tempura, bruschetta, meatballs and other finger foods I left quite satisfied.
I had the great opportunity to meet other Unilocalers which is the reason why I love going to these events.
As always great job to Jando an team for hosting a fun time. Looking forward to the next event.

The idiosyncratic namesake of the establishment, «Front Toward Enemy», are the famous stamped words that can still be found, to this day, on the M18 Claymore mine; difficult to find, but even more (allegedly) difficult to miss if you were unfortunate to run into the wrong end of one (i.e. the «front»), these little packages of mayhem chewed up anything in their blast radius… and those who lived to tell such tales usually exclaimed that one should strive to keep the «Front Toward (the) Enemy.»
Fortunately for the Queens’ Unilocaling faithful (as well as a bunch of familiar faces hailing from the other boroughs, and even Jersey), this joint, though «difficult to find», generated significantly less sinister outcomes than the M18. Make no mistake though, the drinks at this event hit, and they hit hard (the eponym-​bearing Claymores would have been proud).
It was loud when my +1 and I finally found a post-​up spot by the bar, and there was no drink menu at our part of the bar. The bar man tried his utmost to convey the specials, alas the mouth noises of my fellow Unilocalers in the middle of conversation ultimately won out, and I didn’t hear a word of Mr. bar man. «Gimme four of the third thing» were the instructions I directed to the bar, and four Southern Strawberry’s came out. Very boozy, very gingery… should’ve been called Southern Ginger, though that isn’t necessarily a bad thing (I happen to be a fan of ginger, and some… but not all… gingers). Miss +1 wasn’t feeling the Southern Strawberry though, so we both switched to the old fashioned.
Straight up liquor with a touch of hot sauce pretty much set the tone for the rest of the night. As familiar faces kept saying «hello», more whiskey was poured. This process repeated itself for a two hour cycle, with some reprieves in the form half-​hearted attempts to play games of pinball or darts… as well as in the form of food (veggie burgers, octopus, and chicken were all tasty bites).
A 21 gun salute to the evening’s bartenders, they ran through quite the gauntlet with as sizable a Queens event crowd as I can remember… and they certainly passed with flying colors. As you can imagine, without doing some reconnaissance and some strategic anatomical location-​ary placement (by the kitchen…) getting to the food was difficult at times; however, like I said, this was easily remedied with some hard work and due diligence on our part (i.e. standing by the kitchen).
As always, a tip of the hat to our fearless leader (Jando), for picking a place so close to my place of residence. It was as if the dude was cognizant of how the evening’s goings-​on were going to turn out. Definitely gonna visit the place again sometime soon.

Another event which makes history on Queens, this was awesome the location was a little familiar, because I had been in another event a few weeks ago.
Finally the weather is give us a break and is getting warm, so I did arrived a little early for this event. I started drinking Blue Moon, while I was waiting for the event to start.
The server did the best they could to indulge the large herd of Unilocaler present at this event, and my personal opinion they did a good job.
The food was really amazing even the Veggie burger that was really tasty (I not a Veggie person at all). Tempura chicken had to have some crack on the recipe they were delicious that I pretty sure more than one Unilocaler or 1+, they were scrumptious themselves. Beef burger very nice nicely cooked, I had to stop myself from having these, and every time I saw one server this is on tray I grab one.
All drinks were very strong and well doing even though the bar was very busy the all day.
There was a live band, that throwback us back to 90s. Thanks for that
Thanks to Jando, Ruggy that was helping, the Staff from Front Toward Enemy for this event.

Hella BENT.
Who?
Me.
As you can tell by my photos of this place, my camera had a few drinks as well.
The drinks were good to me until I had to find my way home much, much later that night.
I regret nothing.
There were about 4 drinks on that Unilocal menu but the Southern Strawberry is the only drink you should concern yourself with. Strong, good strawberry flavor, and served in either a big beer mug or a smaller Mcdonald’s parfait cup. I had both.
Size doesn’t matter… says no one EVER. Go with the beer mug.
The space is nice. The hipster feel is real here. There’s room for a stage by the front entrance of this place and even a nice tight square to dance in. Ample seating whether it be high couch seatings in front of the back but towards the wall or if you prefer more of a communal thing, there are circular couch seatings in the back along with regular square tables. The bathrooms are clean. I checked and tested it out.
You’re welcome.
They even have nice bar games such as DARTS and ring a loop on a hook game. Forgive me, I’m not going to Google to see what that game is called.
The food was just okay. I judge only the 1 thing I managed to get my hands on which was the octopus skewer. Wasn’t for me and we Asians LOVE octopus. The burgers I heard wasn’t as good as well but that’s heresay.
It was a packed house all night. Tighter than a tampon wrapper. But more space towards the back area by the kitchen. Most importantly, I came for the people. I met lots of new Unilocalers, that is Unilocalers thst I have not met before not just new as in newly minted Elites. Although, I’ve met my share of those folks that night or people who rarely came out to events in general.
As usual big thanks to Jando for getting this event going and keeping it that way. Thanks to Claymore mines, I mean Front Towards Enemy for hosting us. And as always, thank you liquor for reminding me never to drink like that again.
The latter said by no one ever.
FAN

From Midtown, this was a complete B to get to, since the trains were all sorts of messed up today… but 100% worth it. I brought my coworker/​friend, a new Unilocaler — Chris P. to the event and he had a blast and met so many new faces… as did I! I hardly ever make it out to Astoria, so this lovely event was a great excuse to cross the river over into Queens.
The music here was the BOMB DIGGITY. The live band was simply amazing (their voices were so good) and even just the music they were playing was nostalgic (90s and early 2000s). If this is the music they always play, I’d come here every weekend. What is love??? Baby, don’t hurt me.
Service — the two owners were super friendly and they have a great vision for this fairly new place. The bartenders and servers were all nice as well.
Food:
Octopus — oh my gosh, never have I been served massive chunks of fresh octopus at a YEE before. Yum.
Veggie burger — mehhhhh I’m a carnivore, but this wasn’t a bad veggie burger
Beef burger with caramelized onions — healthy (aka large) servings. I was stuffed. The overall burger flavor was 4-​star rating worthy
Bruschetta — loved the bread it came on and it was plenty flavorful
Tempura chicken — best out of the bunch!!! I think we all ate so many of these…
Great to see old faces and meet some new ones as well. See everyone soon!
PS: Jando, you’re the bestest!!! You too, Ruggy ;)