Ukus

The best authentic Baltic food in Astoria and probably anywhere. I love the quality and home style food they make.

Ukus makes the most delicious burek ever! Everything is fresh and flavorful and made right there. It gets busy so account for that if you are in a rush but no matter how long it takes the food is SO worth it.

I like the food here but the service is horrible. Any time we went there to eat the guy who works there was nice, but the lady is always very-​very mean and rude! Its not acceptable to treat customers that way. I think they are predjudice with people who are not from their country, as others were complaining about this as well. So even if we like the food, we do not go there any more.

It’s a small place but enough big to have your fast food though. The price was more expensive then other Mediterranean places around, but the quality is okay.

I was a first timer and unfamiliar with the food till a close friend brought me there to try the food. Since I left I have not stopped thinking about the food I’ve had. Portions are very gererous and the food was incredible. The atmosphere is simple yet clean, a mom and pop shop that puts the quality of food above all. Highly recommended. Dobro

I had the worst burek in NY. It was served warm, extremely rubbery, hardly any cheese. It was obvious that they are trying to save on cheese. I tried to explain to the man in charge there that product is bad quality and he looked at me very rude saying that just how it is here no saying sorry. Not welcoming place.

This place is off the beaten path in Astoria, known for its Greek restaurants and incoming Asian and American restaurants. This little restaurant serves European food, which is lacking in NYC. This was very authentic, away from the crowds. There are just a few tables and a small open kitchen in the direct front of the restaurant. The menu is simple, with numerous types of Burek, sausages, meat entrees, salads, soups, and a few desserts. The décor is basic, with nice paintings on the wall. Service is great, bilingual in both English and European languages which I cannot decipher. The customers are mainly locals, speaking dialects of Europeam languages. The cuisine is mainly Bosnian, Serbian, maybe a little Croatian. We only had bureks, which were massive. They were inexpensive and were delicious. There appeared to be a hundred layers flaky phyllo dough, stuffed with a choice of meat, cheese, cabbage, spinach, etc. Their meat slice was yummy. The meat was finely ground up and had a pleasant taste. I highly recommend their spinach one, though, since I think it is much tastier. Try to get through one of those. Their sausages also looked wonderful.

The food is very good, the owners are very nice to their customers. To the people that left bad reviews… make up your mind before u go to this place… are u looking for delicious authentic food, or are you looking for ambiance and 5 stars service… if your answer is second then go to a Michelin star in manhattan. P. S. and Turkish coffee there is not weak at all!

There are tell-​tale signs all around us, trying to give us information and insight, if only we stop long enough to recognize and interpret them.
For example, suppose you’re walking around a new neighborhood, exploring what it has to offer in terms of sights, sounds, culinary adventures, etc. If you see two or more protestant churches on the same block, you know you’re in a neighborhood you don’t want to be in after dark.
One restaurantish tell-​tale sign is «no credit cards». If you see a restaurant that doesn’t take credit cards, there’s often a reason why: because they don’t need to take them. The food keeps the effectivo flowing freely enough to keep the owners satisfechoed.
Sure, there are always exceptions to these rules, but I gotta tell you, Ukus is not one of them.
So why are there 1-​star ratings for this restaurant? It’s the ol’ Unilocal switcharoo. There’s an army of cheapskates, retards, and panty-​wadded thin-​skinned cry-​babies who will give a 1-​star rating because:
* Seamless or groupon screwed up (they are the retards)
* The food is too expensive (they are the cheapskates)
* The service was bad (the bunched panty cry-​babies)
Oh, they’ll cry and they’ll moan about bad food or make up stories about mice to make their pathetic attempt at writing a real review seem something other than the laughable farce it is. But in the end, if you cut through their BS, it all boils down to either Seamless/​Groupon, the food is too expensive for their paycheck, or they feel slighted by the staff.
That said, let’s get down to business. The food.
Burek: A+
Yes, right off the bat. The burek is a damned A+. It’s a meat pie that consists of flaky, crispy, airy phyllo dough outside with crumbled beef on the inside. The phyllo dough was the perfect combination of ultra-​crispy on the outside and chewy/​savory on the inside. The pie itself is 9″ in diameter, and $ 5 gives you one quarter of that, meaning that the geometry-​free cost of said pie is 20/​pi dollars per radian. A typical NYC pizza slice (ignoring the $ 1/​slice homeless specials you occasionally see, since they’re less appetizing than garbage) is about 10/​pi dollars per radian, or roughly half price. However, most people will scarf down 2 pizzas in one sitting. I double dog dare someone to eat the quarter slice of the burek and Ukus.
Stuffed Cabbage: A+
Previous, best stuffed cabbage went to one of my favorite restaurants in NYC: The Polonica. But you know what? Sorry guys, best stuffed cabbage now goes to Ukus. How do they differ? I was never REALLY fond of the sweetness of Polonica’s version of the dish. It was so delicious, I was willing to look errrr… taste the other way and ignore the sweetness. This stuffed cabbage is just as savory (if not more-​so) without a hint of sweetness. Furthermore, the dish is light and airy, as opposed to the dense rock that Polonica serves.
In short, I love this restaurant. I intend on eating EVERYTHING on the menu and look forward to updating this review.

Great find. Cute casual spot for a late-​night dessert and coffee. The woman behind the counter wasn’t the more outward friendliest (maybe part of the Yugo culture?) but she was very helpful in explaining the dessert case (from less sweet to sweetest) and me asking her which was her favorites. We got her top two: the Petit cookie layer cake (with custard in between) and the Hazelnut/​Rum wafer cake. Both mild, fresh, and tasty. We watched her make a turkish coffee from a little red pot on the stove and it was strong and delicious as well. Would like to come back for a meal & and a burek!
Nice place for a burgeoning sleepy block (new Korean place next door, beautiful church & a Keyfood across the street) Never knew that this side of Astoria had such a large Balkan population as well.

The food was good the desert was great. We didn’t have waiter service but the counter guy was helpful

This place is excellent. Very traditional. The only thing is that sometimes it’s hard to find a seat if it’s busy. I would say it’s more of a place to go get amazing food rather than «relax». The staff is always super nice and very helpful. Everything you get on the menu is really amazing !

First of all this place is ridiculously expensive! Second, food sucks!!! bread they serve is never fresh, tastes like rubber. Food is simply NOT good. I got my food to go many many times and they never ever give you napkins/​knives/​forks/​spoons. They always overcharge you! There’s mice everywhere! The girl that works there is beyond rude, barely speaks English and the SERVICE IS HORRIBLE ! Worst of all its way OVERPRICED! Do not waste your money here. All you will get is bad overpriced food and horrible service !

I found this hidden gem off Steinway because the old cevabi place I used to go recently closed down. I went there with my family on a busy night. We tried everything on the menu from the cevabis to boreks. The owner and his wife cooks and serve the food so be patient. Make sure to bring your wallet because youre paying lots of pennies and nickels for some boreks and cevabis. One night we went there and the owner came to our table and asked how everything was and told us how he started in the restaurant business. Originally his father owned a restaurant in Bosnia, so he took the same magical recipes and brought it to NY and it is THE BEST cevabis you will ever eat in NY.

I’m usually too lazy to write any reviews but had to write this one…
My friend lives on 43^rd St just around the corner from Ukus. We were walking back to her place late last night and she told me she needs to try someday as she heard good things. It was clearly closed but I walked up to the window to scope it out and to my disgust see mice roaming around the counter and in/​out of the stove which sit right along the front window! We were totally grossed out and now we’re taking lightly the ‘A’ ratings we see around. Maybe it’s just a NYC thing to dismiss mice crawling around where food is prepped and cooked. Buy some mouse traps or something jeez. I took pictures by the way but not going to post.

Amazing cevapi with kajmak sauce.
Cheese burek is also really good! Service is ok, and food is usually done really fast. Im really impatient while I wait for my cevapi!
I usually order to go, I ate there only once.
I wish they have delivery. Sometimes I’m really tired and hungry and don’t wanna leave my apartment so have to order from somewhere else.
Almost forgot, for dessert — baklava. You’ll thank me later.

I’ve had the burek, qebapa (cevapi), and shopska salata. That’s what i love and that’s all I order at any balkan restaurant. All of it is definitely delicious. You gotta take into place the fact that the place is small and the waitress even has to help make the food sometimes especially when you get the big groups of bosnians or serbs coming in, it takes them a while to serve you.
I had read a post below me about how the girl was Dominican and her bf was Yugo. Definitely true. I mean I’m mixed albanian and spanish and I get stared down by customers when they see my albanian eagle necklace on… they’re just confused because I look mexican but I’ve dealt with that all my life.

Have I been Naïve for years? Why haven’t I tried this before? Very simple well thought out food. I decided today to have the biggest lunch I have had in a very long time. (I once had Brazilian bbq for lunch, skewers of endless meat for an hour).
I ordered Cevapi which comes in a small (5 sausages) or large portion (10 sausages), mine was the small. It comes with creamed cheese, chopped onion and roasted red peppers with the sausage served in this soft pita like bread. When you start mixing everything into the pita, it becomes a party, WOW! This was excellent!
I also ordered a Burek aka meat pie. It comes in 2 slices big enough to feed a family. Very good, dry but still good.
Next I ordered the Bevorka which is chicken soup with a dollop of creamed cheese. Hands down one of the best simple wholesome chicken soups, no store bought chicken stock.
If your looking to try something not, Japanese, Mexican, Greek, Italian or American, then try Balkan food. I highly recommend!

4.5 Stars!
We love the burek here! It is perfect! We just couldn’t find any flaw on the burek. Everything from the size to the flavor was just perfect! We ordered two cheese burek & one meat. They were huge! We couldn’t finish them, we ended up taking one of the burek home.
We also order the beef goulash. This is the reason why we couldn’t give the perfect 5 stars. We’re not saying that the goulash was bad, in fact, they were delicious, but not perfect. The meat was somewhat chewy. The mashed potato that came with the goulash were soooo delicious! Flavorful!
The place is small but clean. The staff were polite.
$ 5.50 for each burek. $ 13 for the beef goulash.
CASH ONLY
We’ll definitely go back!!!
Highly recommended!

In my books, Ukus serves the best Bureks in the city! Far superior to any other version I’ve tried across the different Albanian, Bosnian, Turkish (slightly different genus) varieties I’ve sampled. In retrospect, I’ve loved their taste so much, I have been socially inconsiderate while consuming them — if I were to count the number of times my dining partner requested me to «slow down» during the meal.
But, I have a simple dining philosophy: a dish must be enjoyed at the temperature it is supposed to. So, while my foodie friends take out their cameras to snap the dish from different angles, I am chafing at the delay in not chomping down the food while it’s hot. It’s a complete and utter waste when it comes to Bureks, as it is rare to find them served re-​heated, let alone fresh and piping hot. But, the wedge of the spinach burek had multiple (thrillingly!) crisp and flaky layers of dough, and even a sharper feta cheese inside to accentuate the flavor. The potato burek was piping hot, baked to order, as was the superlative difficult-​to-​find, cabbage burek — and both of the pies were shaped like a garden hose (or my own visual association: mosquito coil!)
We also had the Cevapi, 5 tubes of minced meat served inside the pita bun, and accompanied by chopped onions, and ajvar spread. Ukus’ version was also really good, and charred on the outside and juicy on the inside. Even though the Cevapi were placed inside the bun, we thought it prudent not to eat it as a burger, and instead break off the bread to eat with them. It turned out to be a good idea as one of the few non-​Bosnian expats dining within the restaurant was struggling with keeping the Cevapi from shooting off the bun!
So, it turns out all the Bosnian restaurants have something or the other that they excel at: Ukus for Bureks, Old Bridge for burgers, Cevabdzinica Sarajevo for Cevapi and Sudzuk, and Djerdan for desserts. For my money, Ukus is still the most competent at handling both vegetarian and non-​vegetarian options. I’m still waiting to try their famous stew that includes Suho Meso (beef jerky from nearby Black Bull meat market). Just one more reason to love Astoria! (4.5 stars)