Between breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, there are many interesting items to choose from at Astoria Coffeehouse & Bistro in downtown Astoria. In fact, considering the size of the kitchen and dining room – relatively small, even by coffeehouse standards – the menu holds lofty ambitions on one end while it hovers in the quaint, comfort food genre on another. The latter is more indicative of bistro roots, while the former inches its way in more and more.

But such is the luxe of the “bistro” categorization these days; it leaves so much open to interpretation. And I guess I’m for that. Chefs get bored with simple, comfort staples, and luckily for them, diners do as well. So I suppose it’s fitting that meatloaf and macaroni and cheese are welcome alongside ceviche mounted in a martini glass. It’s just that year after year, “bistro” has become more and more synonymous with “eclectic.”

On to the eclecticities. The appetizers and salads left me with about an equal amount of good news and bad. I started off with an order of deviled eggs something intriguing, as I’ve never seen them offered on a menu before. Not the standard dinner party affair of yesteryear, ACH spikes theirs with ham and horseradish. I loved them, found they worked well with the hot drop biscuits that favor dinner bread here, but found the mere three halves on my plate to be a bit of a tease. At $4, it’s an inexpensive starter to be sure, but I know what eggs cost, and five halves wouldn’t have broken the bank.

Next came the order of cheese and berries ($8), described as “cheese and seasonal mixed berries baked together, served with specialty crackers.” After reading the lengthy philosophy paragraph at the bottom of the menu, complete with the promise of locally sourced produce, I looked at out the window into the 5 p.m. winter darkness and wondered exactly which local and seasonal berries I’d be treated to. What arrived was the basic four-berry blend available IQF?(individually quick frozen) year-round from wherever, which would have been forgivable had I enjoyed the dish. On one end of the boat was the baked berries, on the other end, a hot, melted pile of Muenster sitting in sour berry juice. The specialty crackers? Ry-Krisp. I know not how to completely fix such a dish, but would start with a different cheese, perhaps brie. I will return in summer to see if fresh berries are employed.

The artisan cheese plate ($12) also left me wanting … not more, but different. Another large portion of Muenster, too cold for a cheese plate, accompanied a goat chevre and a caraway-embellished sheep’s milk chevre. The fig preserves made a good foil for the chevres, but I had no use for the strawberries as green as they were red and the unripened kiwi slices. Ry-Krisp rectangles seemed again out of place.

The ceviche ($9), presentation described above, was a bit of a redeemer. I noted prawn and scallop chunks, but couldn’t identify the fish also swimming in citrus juices, zests and diced bell pepper. The server’s answer of “whitefish” was unacceptable. I later discovered it to be cod. It was tasty, and though the promised lotus root chips I was excited to experience instead turned out to be corn tortilla chips, they were fried fresh for us and hot, and that earned some points.

An oyster and crepe salad ($10) was promising and almost satisfying. Four crumb-coated fried oysters were fresh, plump and not overcooked. The greens and caper dressing were upbeat and bright. My problem was with the crepe, the item I most looked forward to. It was not cooked to order, and was stale and cold. Could have been hours, could have been days. But a fresh, light, slightly chewy warm crepe would have me singing a different tune.

However, this was also pretty much redeemed by a wonderful Caesar salad ($6 half, $9 whole). With whole romaine leaves tossed in one of the better Caesar dressings I’ve come across in these parts, crunchy croutons and Parmesan cheese, the Coffeehouse gets it right. They also offer it with salmon smoked in-house for just $2. The half-order with salmon makes a great meal on its own for the $8 price tag.

Entrees breakfast, lunch and dinner were more or less acceptable all around. Corned beef hash ($9.95) sports thick cubes of house-cured corned beef, just-tender onion and perfectly browned potatoes. Eggs were perfectly cooked over easy as ordered. A house-smoked salmon omelet special was fluffy and just right with the morning biscuits. A multigrain bagel with lox, cream cheese, tomatoes, capers and red onion ($8.95) was fun to put together and eat.

I highly recommend ACH for their turkey sandwich ($8.95). The turkey is roasted in-house, which makes all the difference, and sliced at that perfect eighth-inch thickness. Add to that the garlic aioli, thick avocado, Swiss cheese, sprouts and roasted tomato on a rustic pub bun, and it’s worth a weekly lunch choice. Kettle-style potato chips accompany.

The bistro deluxe burger ($13) was impressive looking, with the top bun propped by two thick onion rings, and tasty enough, with melted provolone and tomato relish, but cooked well rather than the medium I’d requested. House fries are hand-cut, irregular and honestly too thick to be served crisp. There was a charm to the smoked catsup on the side, though, and if you eat them before the burger, they aren’t as limp as if you wait.

A recent dinner special of braised venison osso buco ($18) was perfect for the season, and the kind of bistro fare I’d come for. Rich red wine sauce and and vegetables rimmed the falling-off-the-bone shank, which rested atop a mound of soft polenta. I dug for the marrow to finish off the dish, content to end on a most pleasant note. I never did have room for a sit-down dessert, but found their cookies and pastries quite impressive later at home, and will return for them when I return for their delicious coffee drinks.