Four Corners

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Written by Brian

Category: Restaurant Reviews

We were looking for a good breakfast place somewhere in Delmar, so we could hit up the Cheese Traveler on the way back home, a quick search brought up Four Corners Luncheonette.  Known for it's creative menu and quality food, we figured it would be a good spot for a nice breakfast.

It is a smaller place, with a homely feel.  We only had to wait a few minutes until a table was cleared off for us, but I can see waiting for quite some time at it's busy points.

I ordered a dish off their specials menu called Oreo Cakes ($8), it was two buttermilk pancakes with crumbled Winter Oreos inside and cinnamon butter sauteed apples and craisins on top.   It was served with real maple syrup.  They used a ton of oreos in the pancakes, which really gave them a strong and amazing flavor.  The apples and craisons on top were also very good, tasted almost like a chunky apple sauce.  Unfortunately, I thought the apples overpowered the oreo pancakes, so I ended up taking the apples off and eating them separately.  The real maple syrup is always a nice touch.

Josie ordered the Ovos Vasco Da Gama ($10), three eggs scrambled with chorizo, tomatoes, peppers, onions and mozzarella cheese.  Served with homefries and toast.  She absolutely loved this dish  The flavors in the eggs worked together great.  She would order this again in a heartbeat.  Her only complaint about the dish is that the homefries were not seasoned and bland.

We love our homemade hash, so we also ordered a side of their Red Flannel Hash ($5), grilled diced western russet potatoes, onions, peppers, and corned beef.  Also very good, if you have never had hash not out of a can, you really should try it.  This dish was great, but if I were making it, I would add a bit less peppers, as there was more peppers than any other ingredient, and it took over the dish a little bit.

Four Corners Luncheonette is a very relaxed environment, so not the place to go if you are in a rush, but they do feature a creative menu as well as the classics for a reasonable price.

Red Flannel Hash
Oreo Pancakes	Ovos Vasco Da Gama

Barnsider

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Written by Brian

Category: Restaurant Reviews

Barnsider is located right off Wolf Road in Colonie, it is your typical steakhouse, and runs on the expensive side.

I ordered the Lobster Casserole with sirloin.  The lobster casserrole is just a ton of lobster, with crackers and butter.  It is really simple, but really good, although the lobster was a bit overcooked.  The sirloin was very small and while ordered medium rare, had parts that were well done, and parts cooked perfectly.  The sirloin had great flavor, and while cooked more than I would like, was still quite tender.  The dish costs $32, which is a lot to pay for this dish.

Josie ordered the Beef Wellington.  She descibed it as cooked perfectly, tender, and having a great flavor.  Her only complaint with her dish was that the rice pilaf was overcooked.  Her dish cost $27 which is also a bit pricey for what you get.

Service was slightly on the slow side, but another waiter stepped in to help out when ours got busy, and it was a bit busy, so the small delay in the kitchen was understandable.  They also have a salad bar included with an entree.  It is a smaller salad bar, offering about 10 salad ingredients as well as cheese and warm bread you cut yourself.  Not amaing, but a nice option to have.

Lobster Casserole and Sirloin	Beef Wellington

Mikes Diner

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Written by Brian

Category: Restaurant Reviews

Mike's Diner is my local go-to diner.  I go there once a week.  They have your typical diner food but add some unique items like Almond Joy French Toast and Pumpkin Pancakes.  They have plenty of seating and plenty of parking.  I've only had to wait for a table once or twice and it was never a long wait.

This trip, Josie had a pumpkin waffle with peaches and whipped cream.  Yeah, it is a bit strange, and I can safely say it isn't specifically on their menu, although they do offer the same dish with a plain waffle called Peaches and Cream.  The waffle was cooked well, nice and soft, and believe it or not, the flavors actually did go well together pretty well, although the pumpkin flavor in the waffle was minimal.  They used canned peaches, but what do you expect in November?

I got a breakfast burrito.  This used to be on their specials menu, but you can always get it.  They take eggs, meat (sausage for me), and cheese and I have them put the hash browns that come with it inside, it is all cooked together.  You can also add any vegatables you want.  Flavors in this dish are great, and the hash browns inside give it a nice texture.

Josie thinks that their coffee is one of the best in the area, I'm not much of a coffee person, so I'll yield to her on that.  They also offer real maple syrup for an extra cost.

Service has always been amazing, except the one time we go to review it.  The waitress seemed distracted, it took her way too long to come over to take our order, and we sat there for over 5 minutes after she took the last of our plates before she brought over the check.  That being said, this has never been an issue in the dozens of times we have been there in the past.

I would have given them a 3 1/2, but we don't do 1/2s at this site, so I rounded up based on previous experiences.

The Standard Restaurant

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Written by Michael

Category: Restaurant Reviews

Since this is my first review here on CR Foodies, let me preface the review by saying the following.  I am a Chef. I work in or around the Capital Area. I have been wanting to do reviews here but was unable to due to the fact that one of the restaurants on here that was reviewed was owned and operated by my wife and myself.  I considered it in bad taste to own a business listed on here and write reviews about others.  With that said we have closed our restaurant and, I can now in good faith do objective and accurate reviews.

To describe how I rate restaurants or anything for that matter. I say the following:  We all have one common goal when we go out to EAT, that is to EAT, I mainly judge a place on it's food. Good food is good plain and simple, if it comes from a shack or a gold plated building, if it's good then it's good. I base my reviews in the following manner 75% Food is it good? Is it bad? or is it just middle of the road? Had worse but had better.  The place of business and ambiance are just 15% of my review as long as the place is clean and no paint chipping into my food or drink I don't care if it's a shack or a palace like I said we go to eat if its good food then I'm happy.  Yes and finally the wonderful service that we all expect.  I base just 10% of my reviews on service, yes bad service can ruin your experience but why let it? As long as the person is friendly and checks in a few times I'm good.

My First review is on the Standard Restaurant.  Yes it's located in a Mall.  Thats not the end of the world, it's not a Chain it's not in the "Food Court" so to me it's just another building you don't even have to enter the Mall to get into it.   The place is clean and very well decorated. They are trying to bring us back to a time when most of us were not even alive yet or even thought of and I think they do a good job of it.

The Service was just fine no problems at all greeted right away, seated right away and the server was at our table in about two minutes of us arriving.  Our party was made up of Myself, my Wife and our two youngest children. We place our drink orders and placed an order for a appetizer at the same time. We each had a soda to drink, and ordered the Buffalo Chicken rolls. We each placed or order for our main course at that time.  My wife Cassie ordered the Parmesan Crusted Chicken that came with Cappilini (angel Hair) with a Tomato Cream Sauce.  I ordered the Meat Loaf Stack.

Now on to the Food.  The app arrived it was hot and well prepared it was pulled chicken with Buffalo sauce and Blue Cheese all wraped in what seemed to be a Wonton wrapper, and then deep fried, then cut on a bias and served pointing to the sky.  They were served with Blue Cheese Dressing, and dressing it was I can see it being used on a salad but not as a dipping sauce it was way to loose to be used as a sauce, but overall the app was good.  Our main courses arrived again my wife ordered the Parmesan Crusted Chicken, I had a taste so I could give a fair and accurate review of the dish. The pasta was cooked to perfection it was Al Dente, not over cooked and mushy.  The Cream sauce had a good flavor and left no watery residue on the plate.  The chicken was indeed encrusted with Parmesan cheese.  It was pan fried and cooked just right the problem was is that just because its encrusted with cheese does not mean to forget to season it, with some basic salt and pepper.  The dish was not wiped either before it was served it had a couple of spots of sauce on the outer rim of the plate no it did not detract from the taste of the dish but attention to detail is all a part of the dishes presentation.  Cassie also agreed with my assement of the dish.  I had the Meatloaf Stack. It was three slices of Meatloaf with mashed potatoes, caremelized onions, French green beans, and Mushrooms (not mentioned on menu).  I love Meatloaf, but not this loaf no it's not for me.  First off it had roasted red peppers in it and roasted red peppers bleed through just about anything and that they did.  The meat was a low grade at best it reminded me of a Salisbury Steak tv dinner.  The rest of the dish was ok and cooked the way it should have been the beans still had a snap to them and the mashed were not sloppy or too thick.  The menu made no mention of mushrooms and I don't really care for them or I would have had the server omit them off the dish.

The entire cost was about $75.00 for two, one app and two sodas kind of over priced for what we recieved but I would go back for another visit.

I give it 3.5 forks had worse but had better.

Meatloaf Stack	Parmesan Crusted Chicken

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Bangkok Bistro

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Written by Charlotte

Category: Restaurant Reviews

We have found a fun place to enjoy Thai food (with a twist) and martinis. The Bangkok Bistro (Colonie location) is at 1619 Central Avenue just west of Krause's Homemade Candy. Our first experience we enjoyed the chicken tamarind and basil fried rice. We enjoyed a dirty martini and a mango martini and had the fried bananas in pastry with ice cream for desert. The mango martini was very good. Definitely fresh incredients! The ambiance is modern but the music is mostly retro 1980s (wwhich was fun). The next time we ordered take out which was yummy. We invited friends to join us the last time and we enjoyed several appetizers and thai custard, apple crisp, green tea and pineapple ice cream for dessert. The only negative I would share is that you should stick with martinis and not ask for any other mixed drinks because they seemed watered down and not very good. But overall we will continue to enjoy the Bangkok Bistro and Martini Bar.