Category Archives: Colonie
“At high tide fish eat ants; at low tide ants eat fish”
Thai Proverb
Bangkok Bistro is one of my favorite restaurants & I’m so happy that I have one here in Schenectady with me to eat at whenever I want but in case you haven’t heard, there’s a new location in Colonie (luckily, right around the corner from my boyfriend’s house)! 
On July 4th of this year, their new location opened on 1619 Central Ave by Krause’s Candy. I went there recently to check out the new location and I decided to try one of the meals I’ve been eyeballing for quite sometime. This restaurant is smaller than the Schenectady location but it’s got a good feel to it. I pulled up to it and there were fire torches outside – hard to miss!
My favorite thing to order is their Steamed Pot Stickers. I can’t help but order it each time I go, I love the curry sauce with peas and the chicken/veggie mix inside is really tasty. This time I decided to order something new. I always saw the jalapeno poppers on the menu and I’m lactose intolerant so I never ordered them because of the cream cheese. Prepared with my lactaid, I decided to do for it and to my surprise they weren’t the poppers I was used to but in the form of a roll – with salmon! I could taste the salmon and it made the flavor of this roll so much better than regular poppers that tend to be bogged down with cream cheese. Covered in panko, the crunchy bread crumbs kept the poppers from being too spicy while giving the roll more texture than the oil soaked fried skin that I’m used to.
I love this restaurant & I seem to always find something new I want to try so don’t be surprised if it shows up here often. Haven’t been? Give it a try! Don’t forget to check out their long list of martini flavors!
“The North thinks it know how to make corn bread, but this is a gross superstition. Perhaps no bread in the world is quite as good as Southern corn bread, and perhaps no bread in the world is quite as bad as the Northern imitation of it.”
Mark Twain
This past Wednesday I went to Classe Catering‘s Food Blogger Tasting Event featuring Chef Jeremy Kane. Classe Catering (2 Petra Lane in Albany, off of Rapp Road between Washington and Central Avenues) is already a well-established catering company but they recently decided to add barbeque to their menu and my job as a food blogger was to taste & comment (& of course blog).
Joined by FUSSYlittleBLOG, Wendalicious & The Crispy Cook, we were presented with a well decorated table full of sauces, varying side dishes and my mouth began to water. 
We started with a pulled pork sandwich which they describe as “seasoned with our signature rub, smoked for 24 hours and tossed with a chipotle bbq sauce and served on a warm buttermilk biscuit” paired with creamy coleslaw, “hand shredded and tossed with caraway, vinegar and sugar.” The first thing I thought when they put this in front of me (other than, ew I hate coleslaw) was that I love the mason jar concept they’ve developed. “Classy” BBQ is what they set out to make and I think the mason jars still keep this fancier BBQ food a little rugged.
I really enjoyed this pulled pork. I feel like if meat is seasoned well enough, you shouldn’t need sauce- at least not too much, and that was the case here. This pork wasn’t drowning in sauce but you could definitely taste it. After eating we all discussed that the biscuit was a little too much, though. I ended up eating this mini sandwich with only one half of the biscuit- and I love biscuits. The dryness of the biscuit wasn’t a very good pairing with this drier version of pulled pork.
As for the coleslaw, I was incredibly impressed. Chef Kane created a coleslaw that I not only tasted & continued to eat but finished. I hate coleslaw. If there’s coleslaw on my plate I turn into a little girl and squeal until it’s removed, I don’t know where this hatred stems from because I love everything in coleslaw, I just hate it all put together. I figured I’d taste it to be polite and then ask my Mom (who also attended) her opinion but I really enjoyed it. Mostly because I could taste all the various vegetables and it wasn’t drowning in mayonnaise, the vinegar was a nice lighter touch & the size of the vegetables was perfect, I’m impressed.
Next, we were given collard greens “stewed with ham hocks, onion and vinegar.” 
I don’t eat collard greens very often but I liked them. The size was a little big for my taste, I felt like I was eating giant pieces of green and they were somewhat difficult to chew through so I ended up having to shove the whole thing in my mouth.
Next, we were served the ribs, “brined for 24 hours, dry rubbed for 12 hours, smoked for eight hours and finished with Big KaHoona’s house-made barbecue sauce” & the brisket, “seasoned with our signature rub and slow smoked for 12 hours.” As for the ribs, I really liked the way they were cooked. They were tender enough to tear off the bone but not too tender where they literally would have fallen off of the bone. The house BBQ sauce was probably my favorite of the 4 we were given as options which included: a Dr. Pepper Based Sauce developed by his nephew, Mango Chipotle, Jalapeno Peach as well as the House BBQ. The taste was strong but the smoky flavor was a little more subtle and I liked it that way. I loved the brisket, it was gone before I realized I didn’t take a picture of it. The texture was juicy but I wouldn’t have minded a bit of fat on there, that’s where the flavor is, right?
The brisket burnt ends were also thrown into the Macaroni & Cheese, “elbow noodles tossed with an extra sharp Vermont cheddar cheese sauce, “burnt ends” Dijon laced buttery bread crumbs and baked until golden brown.” I thought the smoky flavor in the Mac & Cheese was bacon but it was the brisket. I really enjoyed the Mac&Cheese, the smoky flavor was a great surprise but, in my opinion, could have used a bit more cheese. I may be lactose-intolerant but as I said that day, if I’m gonna eat the cheese, I want to really be able to taste it!
The last bit of meat we were served was the Jamaican jerk chicken, “marinated in island spices, 
grilled over charcoal and glazed with a light mango barbecue sauce.” Out of all of the meats, this was my least favorite. It tasted good but I didn’t taste anything different in this chicken that wowed me. I really enjoyed the mango sauce but whatever the “island spices” were, I didn’t really taste them, just chicken.
I really enjoyed their Baked Beans as well, “slow cooked with salt pork and molasses.” I like baked beans anyway & to me, there’s no BBQ without them.
My favorite thing all night was the cornbread, “with jalapeño and roasted corn and served with honey butter.” I really dislike when cornbread is shaped like a muffin, to me those tend to be packed too tight and are lackluster in flavor. This cornbread looked like it was homemade, cut into various sized pieces and almost fell apart in your mouth with each bite. With the first bite, I found bits of actual corn. At the time, I wasn’t aware of the jalapeno but I did taste something different with this cornbread than previous BBQ places I’ve been to. It wasn’t spicy like jalapeno but it was very satisfying.
After we were done eating, Chef Kane showed us the kitchen and the little tool to thank for our wonderful meal. The smoker came up to his chest with only 5 shelves (I took a picture but it came out too blurry). I can’t imagine having to cater a whole party with that smoker especially with the ribs smoking for one period of time and the brisket another.
Reading this blog entry make your mouth water? On Thursday, June 16th you have the opportunity to taste the great food I did at their Launch Party at the Pruyn House with BBQ/Beer Pairings, Live Music & Entertainment from 4:00PM-7:00PM for a $5 Donation to benefit the Food Pantries and Friends of the Pruyn House. RSVP “I’m In” to BBQBASH@classecatering.com – Hopefully, I’ll see you there!! 
Daniel from FUSSYlittleBLOG w/ Miss Fussy, Wendy from Wendalicious, Rachel from The Crispy Cook, Me & Chef Jeremy Kane
“One of the glories of New York is its ethnic food, and only McDonald’s and Burger King equalize us all.”
John Corry
Usually on Tuesdays I write about new restaurants in the area that I’ve had the pleasure of eating at & this week that isn’t changing for me but you may be surprised by my choice of restaurant: Burger King. 
Yes, Burger King. To everyone else Burger King may be as everyday as McDonalds and Taco Bell but not to me. Believe it or not, at 22 years old, I just recently experienced my first Burger King meal.
My burger of choice was the Whopper Jr with a side of fries. I learned that if you don’t ASK for a Whopper Jr with cheese, you will not get cheese, it’s assumed that it’s a HAMburger not a cheeseburger. Now, I understand that it’s rather silly that I explain to you what Burger King tastes like and it’s prices, locations and possible menu options. I say that because anytime I mentioned that I’d never actually been to a Burger King, I’d get a look like I have 12 heads so I assume the lack of Burger King in one’s life is an anomaly.
Instead, I’m going to explain how this happened.
I “grew up” on McDonalds, in a sense. My Mother was never one to let me eat that food all the time but Happy Meals kept me appeased when I visited her at work and I also live in walking distance from one so even when she wasn’t taking me, I could get there myself. Wendy’s is my Mom’s favorite and I will admit has the better quality food so if we were eating fast food and my Mom had the choice, we went to Wendy’s (plus, how can you pass up those Frostys). Taco Bell needs no explanation because it’s fantastic and just the thought of cheap, great tasting tacos makes it hard to stay away.
As for my first Burger King meal, it was alright. Either because I’m used to McDonalds or everyone just pumped up my expectations of Burger King left me underwhelmed. Believe me, I understand that it’s fast food and I’m not getting the highest quality food ANYWAY but it was good. If I had my choice, though, I’d still stick with McDonalds even if Wendy’s is better quality
*NOTE- I recently watched an episode of Dr. Oz where he & two female guests ate only fast food for a week and ended up losing about 5 pounds http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/dr-ozs-fast-food-diet?fbc_channel=1 I’m thinking of trying this out soon, when I do, you can read what I experience here!
“Forget about being world famous, it’s hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence.”
Doug Coupland
I love buying things that are abnormal, that you wouldn’t normally cook with or can’t find at your local Price Chopper. I’ve been trying to make sushi recently. I bought a book, the supplies, read up on it on the internet but I needed to find noori (seaweed). I used to live in NYC with a plethora of Asian Supermarkets, there were probably more of those than American Supermarkets, and I missed knowing right where to go for my favorite bites from overseas. 
If you’re like me, look no further than the Asian Supermarket (1245 Central Avenue, Albany).
I believe I’ve mentioned before my love for Moshi which is a type of ice cream surrounded by rice starch (don’t knock it until you try it!). Thankfully they had some there! Though the cheapest version was about $5.00, that’s just about the normal cost for them. Overall the supermarket is much bigger than I expected it to be from the outside. I couldn’t help but go down each and every aisle to see what they had to offer. Most of the back of the first aisle as well as some space in the back of the store was rice – so much rice.
What I was most impressed with was their seafood section. Almost the entire left wall from when you walk in is seafood either living or not. Not only just seafood but seafood that I had only seen on the Food Network like geoduck and some of the biggest catfish I’ve ever seen!
Even if you’re not looking to buy anything new, go in and take a look at all the different things (and things your used to) they have at great prices! Doesn’t hurt to give it a try! Let me know what you found there & how you liked it!
“Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush. “
Doug Larson
It’s official, Spring has begun. It may not look like it outside but with 2/3 of my favorite 518 ice cream places open, believe me it’s only time before the snow stops and the warm weather is upon us. 
This past week’s weather has been cold to tolerable to beautiful to snow but that didn’t stop my Mom and I from going to Kurver Kreme in the cold. Be forewarned, Kurver Kreme is CASH ONLY so make sure you stop at the bank before experiencing this great ice cream.
What I really like about Kurver Kreme is that the ice cream is so soft and there are so many flavor options. When my mother and I went, their No Fat/No Added Sugar options were vanilla and peach. I’d never had the peach before but the flavor was great, I could really taste the peach. One of my favorite accessories to my ice cream is their chocolate mint sprinkles. What I love about Kurvers is that I enjoy their vanilla ice cream just as much as I enjoy the flavors. Those sprinkles on plain vanilla ice cream is probably my favorite thing to get there.
Though it’s an ice cream place, don’t rule out getting food there either. They use local Albany hot dogs and are tasty for a great price especially when the weather gets nicer! Am I making your mouth water yet? You don’t have to wait, Kurver Kreme just recently opened for the Spring, stop by for a scoop or two!
“Drinking beer doesn’t make you fat, It makes you lean…. Against bars, tables, chairs, and poles.”
Anon.
For those of you who read my blog often, you must know of my borderline obsession with the new Fresh Market. This blog entry I’m going to tell you about my favorite part, something I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, the beer. Most people I know, when they turned 21 beer was just to get drunk, 
to get that “finally I’m legal” feeling out but now that I’ve grown and am more mature with my alcohol at the ripe ol’ experienced age of 22 I see alcohol (beer and wine, mostly) more curiously. It’s kind of a waste of money to buy a six-pack of beer to try only to find out you dislike it and now you’re stuck with 5 more bottles, Fresh Market has solved that problem.
At Fresh Market for $8.99 you can Create Your Own Six Pack. Sure, $9 is a little expensive for a six-pack but you get to choose from Premium beers as well as some beers I’ve never seen sold elsewhere. I’ll try to write a blog entry as soon as I try the various beers. Most recently I tried the Monty Python Holy Grail Ale.
I’m a huge fan of Monty Python so I felt it was my obligation to try this beer and I was surprised. It wasn’t anything special and other than the name has nothing to do with the Python franchise but it was good. It was very close in taste to Budweiser, in my opinion. It tends to run more expensive than Budweiser but if you’re going to have some Python fans over, it may be worth the slight splurge.
Hope you take advantage of this as 
I have. I see a lot of beers always there but they do have new ones to try from time to time.
“The difference of a single day is perceptible. Vegetables can only be tasted in perfection, gathered the same day.”
John Pintard
I recently tried this new restaurant, Garden Bistro 24 (1839 Central Avenue, Colonie) for lunch with my Mother. 
I’ve heard great things about this place and since it’s further back in it’s plaza it almost goes unnoticed. After eating this food, I was excited to share this hidden gem with those who follow my blog.
We had just missed the official lunch time (11-3) by a half hour so we ordered from the dinner menu. The environment was very open and bright, there wasn’t that many people in the restaurant but it was 3:30PM on a weekday so that was to be expected. The waitress was very attentive, checking in from time to time and open to answering any questions.
It happened to be a rather cold day outside so both my Mother and I decided to order soup. I was just getting over a cold so the onion soup was just what the Doctor would have ordered. The menu made it seem like it wasn’t a French Onion soup so I didn’t think to ask for no cheese but it still tasted very good, it was just a little too much for my taste. I really liked this soup, it was slightly heavy though so I didn’t finish it, afraid that I wasn’t going to finish my entrée.
For lunch, I decided to order the Spinach Salad (tender baby spinach, fresh strawberries, toasted almonds, sliced mushrooms, crisp bacon and local goat cheese). When they say fresh they really meant fresh. 
This was one of the best salads I’ve had in a long time. I’m not sure how local the goat cheese is but I could tell by taste how fresh it was, very soft and strong tasting. I don’t know where the strawberries came from but those also tasted fresh. I left the meal with a full feeling but not a stuffed feeling, everything was just very light and fresh. I saved some of my salad for later and though the lettuce ended up a bit soggy, everything still tasted as fresh as it was the day before. I don’t like bacon but the crispy texture ended out the flavors perfectly so even if you’re not a bacon fan, give this salad a chance! If you’re looking for a place in the area with fresh ingredients and a plethora of choices, look into Garden Bistro-24!
“Money, like vodka, turns a person into an eccentric.”
Anton Chekhov
Looking for something to do each Thursday? The Thursday I went, the radio station B95.5 was at Central Steak (1632 Central Ave, Colonie) from 5-7PM giving away gift certificates, as well as diamond earrings. 
The week I went, they were giving away free samples of Godiva’s new brand of vodka. They have the samples on an ice bar tended by “The Ice Man” as well as drink specials on the regular bar. In order to participate in the activities, you must have a dollar bill that has the letter B and the numbers 9-5-5 in the serial number. Then, you roll a die and the number you roll corresponds to the number of the balloon you pop and your prize is inside. The first guy to participate won the diamond earrings which the DJ said he had a 17% of winning.
Even if you don’t have a dollar to participate, this tends to be a very popular event with a lot of people to mingle with, if you choose. While they play music and you “get your drink on” waiters come around with samples of Central Steak food for you to try. 
My Mother and I ordered the special Godiva martini, she ordered the chocolate and I ordered the chocolate raspberry for $5 each. (Sorry for the blurry picture, I didn’t realize until later that night that it was blurry but it’s still a cool picture). The vodka tasted good but those drinks and the espresso one “The Ice Man” was sampling all tasted like Bailey’s. I have no problem with Bailey’s but if I want something to taste like Bailey’s, I figure that I’ll probably just order Bailey’s. I made friends with Charlie “The Ice Man” and got to try quite a few shots of the espresso shot they created. 
It was a very low key situation with great people, great food and great drinks. Check their Facebook page for their list of changing events!
“Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.”
Peter Ustinov
It’s almost impossible to get anywhere in the 518 without having used Central Ave/State St. When I travel the distance between Schenectady and Albany, I can’t help but notice all the places to eat that go unnoticed. Maybe because I always look out for places to write about but it seems as if we get into a habit of thinking of the same places when going out to dinner, the chain restaurants like Applebees, or fast-food like McDonalds. One night, I was looking for something different (after PF Changs was too busy of course) and my boyfriend and I decided to check out Sitar (1929 Central Avenue, Albany), a restaurant I pass all the time but have never been adventurous enough to try- that was the night!
We were seated immediately at a two person table on the side.
The middle, main dining room, was quite lit up but it seemed as our area was darker than the rest of the restaurant. The service was great, could be because the waiters all seemed to be in the same age group as us and we were the youngest in the restaurant so we got into quite a few conversations. They were teaching us how to pronounce things on the menu and recommending food for our next visit, some of the best, most attentive service I’ve experienced.
I ended up ordering the Tandoori Chicken Wings (spicy chicken wings cooked in clay oven) which were $6.95, not a bad price for the amount I was served (picture to right) *NOTE- all pictures were lightened on my computer because it was too dark in the restaurant for the pictures to come out correctly on their own. My boyfriend ordered the Reshmi Kabob (chunks of lamb mildly spiced, charcoal broiled on skewers in a clay oven) for $18.95. His food came with a side & some naan and for the side he chose the vegetables which were great! It was a plethora of cooked vegetables in a spiced sauce that wasn’t curry but still tasted very good. I ended up ordering some for myself because I kept hogging his. I also ordered a side of the garlic naan (bread) because it’s my favorite.
All of the food tasted very good. 
Naan is just bread cooked with garlic and oil, not like Italian garlic bread more like a thick garlic pita. They have a bunch of different Naan flavors so see if there’s a kind you may want. It’s usually my favorite and I was satisfied. The garlic flavor wasn’t as strong as I’d like but it tasted very good dipped in the vegetable sauce.
Since we were both curious, we each ordered a dessert as well. There are 4 options and each is $3.95. The names are hard to spell/pronounce but I ordered the doughnut-like option. They were doughnut balls in maple syrup and honey, very sweet. I actually preferred my boyfriend’s dessert which was mango ice cream with nuts. 
I don’t usually like nuts but it added a great flavor to it. The taste of mine was very good but it did after awhile get too sweet to eat.
This was all a lot of food for us for one sitting so I ended up taking at least half of it home. When I got home I realized that my chicken wings were a bright yellow color that I was unable to see in the dark- kind of made me nervous. The next day, though, I realized I was correct in being nervous. The following 3 days I was on the couch with food poisoning. For the record, there is no way to prove that my food poisoning came from this particular restaurant or that it was food poisoning at all. All I can say is the 3 days following eating here, I was on the couch with sharp stomach pains and I wasn’t able to eat a thing. Could it have been a 3-day stomach bug? Possibly. I just want to disclose the full truth of my experience to those reading to make sure you’re aware. Therefore, I can’t tell you how the food was as a leftover because after being sick, it was the LAST food I wanted to eat. If you’re not used to Indian food, my recommendation would be to try something light, maybe just vegetables & naan until your stomach gets used to the spices & make sure to leave room for dessert!!
“I’m not telling you, ‘Never eat a hamburger.’ Just eat the good ones with real beef, you know, like the ones from that mom-and-pop diner down the street, … And it’s so good that when you take a bite out of that burger, you just know somewhere in the world a vegan is crying.”
Homer Simpson
I’ve heard the name Wolf’s 1-11 thrown around a lot but didn’t know exactly what it was until I went there recently and I can’t believe it’s not packed every single night because of how much fun it is. I went recently to watch the Jets vs. Steelers game and not only was I able to eat my dinner while sitting on a very comfortable couch but I got to watch the game on a huge, clear, projector screen. During halftime, there’s an arcade that has similar games to Dave and Buster’s in NYC. You have a choice of air hockey, a trivia game, basketball, as well as a really cool shooting game where you get to sit in an enclosed jeep-like space and protect yourself from huge predators by shooting them. Each game gives tickets where you can add together in the end to get prizes. Cards to put money on are available at the ticket booth but a few games require tokens that have separate machines.
There are two bars in the restaurant, the main bar in front and a small bar in back for a couple of select popular beers. As for the restaurant, the food was great but the service was rough. Maybe because we went on a game night and it was packed that the wait staff was confused but I ended up having to go to the bar and get a beer myself because no one would wait on me.
I decided on a burger and when I eventually got it, it was very good. 
It was cooked the way I asked and it came in a timely fashion. I don’t have anything bad to say about it but I don’t ave anything fantastic to say about it either. It was a decent burger, nothing more and nothing less. The house burger was only $8.00 which is a pretty good price for a decent burger. My boyfriend’s Mom ordered sweet potato fries and to my surprise it came with marshmallow sauce. You may think that sounds awful but order it and give it a try because I don’t know why, it doesn’t make logical sense but it tastes great, give it a chance.
Overall,Wolf’s 1-11 was a lot of fun. TVs, arcade and food- it’s a great place for any age to hang out and have a good meal, check it out if you haven’t but bring extra money, that arcade will be calling you!
