Iron Roost

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Category: Restaurant Reviews

Iron Roost is located at 36 Front St. in Ballston Spa. Since Brian and I were headed to Saratoga for a wine festival, we knew this was the perfect opportunity to hit a breakfast spot on the way. I quickly came up with a top 3, and Brian zeroed in on Iron Roost.

At first I thought, "really? A 'just waffle' place?" Then I took a closer look at their menu, and my curiosity piqued. Granted I was still hesitant, but I figured what the heck? Plus, we've heard about this place from several people.

When we walked in, the hostess was nowhere to be seen. Not knowing what we were doing, we just wandered around, lost, inside. The hostess immediately spotted our lost faces, and gave us the rundown of how to order, and told us she had a table ready once our order was placed. The way Iron Roost works is the hostess gets you a table, then you place your order at the counter. Or if it's really busy, she puts your name on her list, and when she calls you to let you know a table is ready, that's the time to go up and place your order. It reminded us both of a crepe place in Lee, MA, only much better organized.

Everything about this place gave off a great vibe from the moment we walked in. Everyone was friendly, the restaurant had a warm feel, and last but not least ... the food was SO good.

Brian ordered the Bananas Foster Waffle with a side of their Housemade Sausage, and I ordered the Homemade Corned Beef Hash Waffle. Given how busy the place was, our food was out real fast.

I'll start with my dish. The waffle was perfectly cooked, and I loved that the batter was neutral in flavor. When dealing with savory flavors, a non-sweet waffle batter was a good call. The Corned Beef in the hash was spot on amazing. Absolutely amazing, and the eggs were perfectly cooked to an over-medium. I do, however, have to take off points for the potatoes. Something was off about them. They tasted  unevenly cooked, and they didn't seem to have absorbed the flavor from the corned beef. It's strange to say that, in a hash, the potatoes didn't belong.

With Brian's dish, I'll start with the sausage, because it was the one thing that detracted from the plate. It was too sweet of a sausage. While I'm not opposed to a hint of maple flavor, the ratio was off putting and not something we'd order again. HOWEVER, Brian's waffle was out of this world! Everything about that Bananas Foster Waffle was complete perfection. If you get that waffle (which I highly recommend you do!) ask for a spoon for that sauce! Really, you'll need it because there won't be enough waffle for that amazing sauce and I'd consider it CRIMINAL to leave any of it on the plate!

Iron Roost gets a solid 4 fork review. We can't let the potatoes and sausage slide, as much as we'd REALLY like to, for the sakes of those waffles. That said, Iron Roost is a MUST on our visit list. Oh how I wish they were just a little closer!

Corned Beef Hash Waffle	Bananas Foster Waffle

Blu Stone Bistro

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Category: Restaurant Reviews

Blu Stone Bistro is located on Albany Shaker Road in Colonie, and borders the Hotel Indigo. When you walk in, the decor is very open and trendy. There's a bar up front, surrounded by various high-top tables. Past that, and through double doors, is the more formal seating area.

I will say that I found the non booth seating to be a bit cramped. Neighboring tables were too close, leaving no real space for me to push back from the table in comfort. I'm not a small person, so this was something I took notice of.

For the longest time, I'd avoided going to Blu Stone Bistro for one reason:  Their horrific website. Every time I looked, it was a different shade of horrble. For the prices I saw on their menu, I refused to walk into the establishment until that had been addressed. It looked like now was the time.

I had chosen to drag a friend here because I knew they had happy hour, and I was curious. Restaurant happy hour specials should be a decent value, and also give the diner a good idea of what the restaurant has to offer. In my opinion, happy hour (just like Restaurant Week) should be the restaurant's way to reel in return customers. I didn't find that to be the case at Blue Stone.

Blu Stone Bistro's happy hour consists of their 2 cheapest wines being discounted by $2, and discounted well drinks. There were no appetizer discounts, and no real variety in drink specials. In fact, the drink that came highly recommended was one that was not on their happy hour menu and almost twice their happy hour prices...(the drink was phoenomenal ... but too expensive).

On to the food ... Since I'd arrived really early, I decided to start with a small plate of the Tuna Tartare (not pictured). The dish was exceptional, but at $14 the portion size did not bring value.

Once my dining partner arrived, I ordered the California Flatbread with Bacon ($16), and he ordered the Burger ($13) cooked medium.

For the flatbread being $16, $3 of which was the bacon topping, I found myself hunting for the bacon. if I'm paying $3 for a topping ... it should be everywhere. Just the fact that I had to search for it was a turnoff. The rest of the flatbread was just "ok," flavor wise, but the bread was tough. For the most part I found myself scraping off and eating the toppings, and discarding the bread entirely.

My dining companion's burger was overcooked. It was a well done burger ... there was no pink to be found. He did say that it had good flavor, which was its only saving grace ... especially at $13.

While the service was decent ... there's nothing about Blu Stone that would bring me back a second time. I feel they're too pretentious compared to what they actually offer, and there are far better choices that offer a far better value with amazing food.

Blu Stone earns 3 forks for medocrity. Also note that I've reflected the "Price Per Person" of their standard entree pricing, versus the burger and flatbread had during this meal.

California Flatbread w/ Bacon	Burger & Fries

Ciao Italia

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Written by Brian

Category: Restaurant Reviews

I was hanging out with a friend, and we were hungry, after discussing where to go for far too long, I drove to Ciao Italia.  I had been to this location when it had a different name and owner, it was time for a visit to this new restaurant.

There are two sections to Ciao Italia.  When you first walk in, you are in a take out area.  To the left is a formal, classy looking dining room.  It took a couple of minutes for someone to come out and seat us, but we were there a bit before the typical dinner rush, so I would guess they didn't expect people for sit down service yet.

I ordered the chicken alfredo and my friend ordered the saltimbocca di pollo.  We also shared a side of calamari.  The calamari was pretty good.  It was cooked well, and seasoned, but could have used additional seasoning.  My chicken alfredo was amazing - the fettuccini was homemade, a nice touch.  The chicken was breaded, which was a little strange, but it worked with the dish and kept the chicken incredibly moist.  The alfredo sauce was plentiful and was creamy and amazing.  I loved this dish.  It did have onions in it which I'm not a huge fan of, but you didn't taste them, it just made for a strange texture once in a while.  My friend's saltimbocca was also delicious, we had no complaints about this dish.  Serving sizes were on the larger side, so it also served as a good lunch for me the next day.

The servers seemed understaffed for the bulk of the time we were there, but our service wasn't adversly affected too much by it.  Ciao Italia is close to my home, had great food and reasonable prices.  I will definitely be back - 4 forks.

Chicken Alfredo	Saltimbocca Di Pollo

Calamari

Ravenous

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Category: Restaurant Reviews

After a fantastic weekend in Saratoga, my sister and I wanted to have brunch before we headed home. Ravenous, a crepery on Phila Street, came highly recommended by the locals and the internet. A few people we met the night before strongly advised us to go as early as possible because it fills up fast. And right they were. We arrived at the restaurant 20 minutes after it opened, just in time to grab the last table. Ravenous is a cozy spot, with limited table seating, and room to sit along the windows and at the counter. Unfortunately service was a bit disorganized. On arriving, it is unclear if you should sit down or wait to be seated, since there is no signage for guidance. Several diners who arrived after us were ignored for several minutes while the staff ran around -- until they attempted to sit at a recently vacated table and were told that it had already been reserved by another party by phone. Frankly, I’m surprised they stepped outside and continued to wait. From the time we were sat till the time we had our drinks took about 11 minutes. The servers were very nice, but extremely harried.

Luckily, the food was excellent. We were very torn between the sweet and savory menus, and in the end my sister opted for savory and I decided I needed to try both. You only live once, right? I chose the Zorba the Greek Crepe, which was filled with spinach, feta, scrambled eggs, tomato, onions and fresh basil. The filling was perfectly portioned, and the crepe was surprisingly savory in of itself, and not just a vehicle for the filling. It was really tasty. My sister chose the Lumber Jack crepe containing scrambled eggs, bacon and cheddar, which she deemed excellent. Almost better than the crepes was the homemade pommes frites and the selection of dipping sauces available. We had ours with the BBQ Mayo and the Mango Chutney, which was surprisingly creamy. The pommes frites were delicious and the sauces were good enough to eat with a spoon. For dessert, we ordered the Lemon Blossom crepe, filled with their house made lemon curd and topped with whipped cream. I was happy to see that they use sweeter and fluffier version of the crepe batter for their sweet crepes. And when I tried my first bite of the filling, I was in heaven. It is, far and away, the best lemon curd I’ve ever had.

If you have the time and the patience to wait, the food at Ravenous is excellent. But make no mistake, you’ll be waiting outside, so you definitely don’t want to go on a day that calls for rain. I give them 2 forks for service, but 5 for food. Since the food is the ultimate focus, I compromised on 4 forks and being an impatient person by nature, I doubt I’ll return.

Zorba the Greek Crepe