Sometimes I lie awake at night dreaming of the Greek isles. The pure blue sea, the salty air, the white washed houses…who am I kidding? That’s not what I crave. I miss the food! The honey-soaked pastries, the octopus caught just yards from my table at an outdoor café, the rich lamb kebabs…

Lucky for me, a taste of Greece is only an N-train ride away. On a recent sunny day I skipped lunch and made a mini tour-de-Astoria.

First stop: Artopolis, 23-18 31st St.

The second I walked in this bakery pastisserie, I felt like I’d entered a shrine to the god of all things baked. Tiers of platters brimming with perfectly crafted desserts dazzled my eyes while the sweet smell of honey drew me in. Grand displays offered up an enormous selection of sweets– pistachio shortbread cookies, diples (twisty curls of pastry made from vodka and flour, dipped in honey and sprinkled with walnuts), melomakarona (dark cookies made with flour, cinnamon, cloves, walnuts, nutmeg, sugar, orange juice and sunflower oil and dipped in honey), kourambiethes (butter cookies made with almonds and Greek brandy and then rolled in powdered sugar), baklava (ground walnuts and almonds, wrapped in layers of butter phyllo, baked and drenched in honey)–and breads. more…

If the busy storefront windows at Sahadi’s, on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, don’t appeal to your minimalist leanings, just get over it. You’re going to love this place, even if it takes you years to try all the products. The narrow aisles form a sort of labyrinth through the cramped space, where at every turn you’ll discover bins and jars of dried fruits and nuts or refrigerator cases full of cheeses. This is the place to buy anything you could ever want to eat from the Middle East, along with a healthy dose of European specialty goods.

When I asked the man in charge of the olive bar how many varieties he sold, he did some quick mental math and came up with an estimate.

“Thirty-four?” he said as he scooped a heap of shriveled, oily, black, Moroccan olives into a plastic container. more…