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

Sip and Savor

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Category: News

Written by Brian

Today Adirondack Winery and Gusto Della Vita sponsored a wine and olive oil pairing event.

The event paired 10 different Adirondack Winery wines with ten olive oils or vinegars from Gusto Della Vita as well as 4 cheeses from Adirondack Cheese Company.

The event was held at Adirondack Winery in Lake George.  It was a great event with a small group, so everyone got to know each other.  Keep a look out on Adirondack Winery's web page for future events.

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar by Gusto Della Vita	Wine display at Adirondack Winery

Ciao Italia

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Category: Restaurant Reviews

Written by Brian

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

Taste of Upstate NY Review

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Category: News

Written by Brian

Today was the first 'Taste of Upstate NY' event in Saratoga Springs.  There were over 20 wineries, breweries, and distilleries as well as 27 other food vendors.

Being their first year, there were a few kinks that will need to be worked out (cash only with no functioning ATM, long rope lines for no reason and a few timing issues) but overall, it was a successful event.

The wineries and vendors were there in full force with a large selection of wares.  It is an event you should look out for next year.