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Astoria may be packed with Greek restaurants, and though they're all antidotes to per-pound Manhattan pricing, not all demonstrate that there can be delicious payoff in financial restraint. Stamatis does. Most of its food—the simple grilled seafood and hearty, meaty dishes that dominate the menu—is damn tasty. So what if the walls sport unsightly textured murals, one depicting some Aegean landscape, another a pod of dolphins. The modesty is endearing, given that the fabulous grilled whole fish, with charred skin and moist flesh, and the fantastically tender grilled octopus, are priced to move. Typically temperate Greek dips like tzatziki and skordalia are profligately garlicky here, and the equally winning meat dishes beget another type of frugality: Take on one by yourself, and you’ll doubtless skip your next meal. — JJ Goode

Tzatziki, $5; skordalia, $5; grilled octopus, $13.50; grilled fish, market price