Home Made Egg Nog and Food Porn

Lookee what I did!
It's food porn! Isn't that the most luscious thing you've ever seen?

I just finished making my annual batch of egg nog in time for the solstice/Hannukah. Making it was a sensual experience. I may be slightly tipsy right now. But I only had, like, maybe 1/3 cup of the stuff. I love making egg nog. First, there was shopping for the freshest organic ingredients at the Troy Farmer's market. It's important to get only fresh organic eggs, milk, and cream, because it has to last for a while. The ingredients get to sit and deepen for about a week.

Okay this is where I say that you are technically *NOT SUPPOSED* to use raw eggs. Legal disclaimer: Nosher and her dependents and household items and her future progeny DO NOT recommend you eat raw eggs! Don't! Okay?!? Click here for scary USDA warnings about it. They recommend pasteurized eggs when you have to use raw eggs in a recipe. And here it says that "According to a recent USFDA report, between 128,000 and 640,000 Salmonella infections are annually associated with the consumption of S. Enteritidis-contaminated eggs, and the CDC estimates that 75% of all Salmonella outbreaks are due to raw or inadequately cooked Grade A whole shell eggs." Almost 600 people die in America every year from Salmonella infections. So, consider this a major caveat.

I buy all my eggs from Cornell Farms. They are from free range chickens. Dale & Edna Cornell
Cornell Farms
292 Lower Pine Valley Rd.
Hoosick Falls, NY 12090
686-5545
dcornellfarm@aol.com

They carry: "Dried/fresh herbs, vegetables, berries, honey, maple syrup, eggs, cut flowers, crafts."

Then I whip up the eggs (I'm not disclosing my full recipe here, but there are plenty of great egg nog recipes floating around on the web, so you can experiment and put one together). Then I feel warm inside looking at the beautiful yellow color of the yolks.


It's the color of the returning sun. Now I have to go pack up the bottles and ship them off to all the good little girls and boys.

This has been a nog blog (yuk yuk).

Café Utopia in Mrs. London's

If I could have my way in the world without the restraints of reality, I would eat every day at Mrs. London's in Saratoga. In fact, I would live there. I can't think of enough good things to say about it. In every way it is the ideal café, with the highest quality European style pastries, cakes, espresso drinks and teas. Even their chinaware is of the best quality. And their almond croissants are as good as the best almond croissants in Paris (and I've tasted lots of them both in Paris, and here).

But that doesn't even begin to explain why I love Mrs. London's. Here is a photo of their famed chocolate nebula, a cake of chocolate mousse of such featherweight chocolate heaven and ethereal beauty it approximates the ideal afterlife in chocolate. I've been to Mrs. London's many times, and each time it seems to be even better than what I had remembered. Last week I went there after an incredible spa experience at esthetiques-- my birthday present to myself. I would recommend esthetiques, although they don't have the mineral waters of the Lincoln Baths or Crystal Spa nearby. Anyway, I was already on cloud nine, but eating at Mrs. London's was in itself a transformative healing experience.
I went hoping that they would have my favorite soup, a simple cream of tomato served with grated cheddar that is out of this world. They didn't have it, but they did have a white bean pureé soup that was so good I can't stop thinking about it. It was flavored with rosemary and had a blush of tomato coloring in it, and was just so simple yet so delicious that I became determined to learn how to cook it at home myself.

See how they drizzle top-quality olive oil on the top of the soup? Doing that really enhances the flavor, which was just sublime. I was lucky enough to be in the café at the same time as Mrs. London herself, who explained to me that the soup was actually quite easy, and she makes it with dry beans that need to be soaked, but in a pinch one can make it with canned. Although the dry really are so much better. Beans, some tomato-- a little, not too much-- rosemary, and sage were the ingredients, and some stock.

They have sandwiches and salads at Mrs. London's as well as those stupendous soups, and I am thrilled to announce that they are in the process of expanding to become more of a restaurant. Along with the soup, they serve toothsome fresh bread and a generous pat of butter that is always at the exact right temperature for spreading, and not at all salty or unctuous. I suspect it is European butter.

Here is my full meal, including a pot of jasmine tea and a dessert:

My dessert, called Night and Day, uses the same airy chocolate mousse as the Nebula, but is swirled with fine, light layers of white cake, and topped with dark chocolate. It is just not possible to enter Mrs. London's and go without ordering a dessert. They are works of art-- some of them small domes decorated with tiny sugary honeybees, some of them elegant swirls of chocolate, and yet others classic tarts with perfect berries perched on top.



I swear, when I enter Mrs. London's, my heart rate relaxes and I feel I can breathe again knowing that the world is civilized and there is time for beautiful pastries and real espresso drinks and tea. Their decor is so classy and warm and just right, too. I usually find myself having enlightened thoughts about the state of the world. It is really food satori. But I do not consider Mrs. London's to be 'above and beyond' or 'only for special occasions.' Foods that take time and love to create are essential to life. Granted, it would be pretty unrealistic to eat at Mrs. London's every day (who knows, though? Maybe someone exists out there who does! If you are out there, write me and tell me what it's like to be in heaven, okay?), especially considering that I don't even live in Saratoga. But when I need to be reminded of perfection, I know where I to go.

EATS at Stuyvesant Plaza

This is going to be brief, but I want to recommend EATS Gourmet Marketplace in Stuyvesant Plaza. They're a small deli/catering outfit with excellent stuff: Tate's cookies, a dairy section with imported yogurts, spreads and the like, smoked salmon, a sandwich of the day, gourmet chocolates, and a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish deli foods like chopped liver (it looks really good!), egg and potato salads, knishes, and stuffed grape leaves.

And their web page has photos! It's a good thing, because I forgot my camera.

My favorite item there is the Brie de la Brie. It's the authentic stuff! I don't know anywhere else around here where you can find actual Brie from Brie. The Coop has some, but it's not quite as good as at EATS.

Nicole's Italia in Guilderland and "family values" food

Last night (Sunday) I went to see a movie at Crossgates with a friend. Afterwards we wanted to get something to eat and didn't want to deal with Houlihan's or Uno's at the mall (noisy, food not great). So we tried Nicole's Italia, which is about a mile west of the mall on Western Ave (Rte 20) in what is known as the "20 mall." It's near the Guilderland public library.

Nicole's has a web page, but I can't get it to click on anything.

As my goal was to escape the whole mall feeling, I felt that all in all, we had really just traded one mall for another, since Nicole's is in a large strip mall wedged near Hollywood video. The food at Nicole's was *okay* but overall I don't think I'd go back there. Next time I'm near the mall I will try BFS restaurant, but unfortunately they are closed Sundays.


We shared the bruschetta for appetizer, and that was good in a grilled-cheesey kind of way; it was on the same warm fresh white bread that was set on our table when we arrived. (And doh! I forgot my camera so I couldn't take a picture of anything! Dammit!) Then I had a Caesar salad, which was good, but unremarkable. It was a salad of the dark outer leaves of Romaine, and a so-so dressing that didn't have any of that tangy-salty bite I love. (In the case of an actual Caesar salad, I would have tasted fresh garlic and anchovy paste).

Our waiter was helpful and the service was good. We didn't have to wait at all-- that's the good news. On the other hand, the atmosphere in Nicole's Italia is something between grandmother's living room circa 1975 and the foyer of a funeral home. Lots of mauve and pink and candles on the tables with a partition between the main dining room and the bar made of that cut-glass that was so popular in the 80s. Their bathroom was clean.

My main course was the Gamberi Ortolano, "Lightly battered shrimp, sauteed with broccoli, mushrooms, mozarella in a marinara cream sauce over fettuccini." Oy! Too too much. I should have known from the description, but your Nosher is ever-optimistic and hopeful that her culinary dreams will be realized. The cream sauce was okay but a little bit watery, and there was overall too much mozarella. DeFazio's in Troy does a much better marinara-cream sauce (they call it Rosario). And as usual my portion was way too big, with the signature “family restaurant” mozarella melted and draped over everything like smog in a developing country.

The shrimps were somewhat overcooked (or perhaps just not very fresh) and absolutely buried in layers of fried stuff then sauce then cheese, until it almost didn't matter that I had ordered shrimp at all. It might as well have been tofu or chicken nuggets or eyeballs in there.

Why, one wonders, is this food burial dining referred to as “family” style? I consider "family style" these days to be a euphemism, but for what? Is it perhaps a reference to the sedentary nature of most American families, who like to eat doughy bread and deep-fried everything? Or is it our repression-- we repress our shrimps as we repress our emotions in family life? Is there something politically conservative about people who have resisted the changes wrought by the gourmet movement (a la The United States of Arugula) that aligns them with the “family values” crowd? I do suspect that the people who bring you food unchanged from the 1970s are the same ones who resist changing definitions of family like gay marriage and women's rights. Repression, smothered shrimp, backwards politics-- it's all the same, man!

Albany, apparently, is one of those outposts that has resisted changes both political and culinary, where diners can still glut on major splooges of melted mozarella.

To you, dear reader, this may be a good or a bad thing. For me, it inspired a dream last night in which I had moved back to New York City.

My friend got chicken parmigiana, which looked quite good, and he enjoyed it. It came with a generous side of linguini.

Then came dessert: I asked the waiter what he would recommend-- the strawberry shortcake, or the tiramisu. His vote was for the tiramisu. It was okay, but I must remark that it was the first time I ever had a tiramisu that came with whipped cream (the kind from a can) and chocolate goop, like as in Hershey's from a squeeze bottle.

Gack.

Usually tiramisu = lady fingers soaked in espresso with mascarpone and bittersweet chocolate. Click here for good normal recipes for tiramisu at Heavenly tiramisu!! I've eaten tiramisu all over the world, and it took good ole Albany to put doubt in my heart about it. Now whenever I want to order it, part of me will hesitate, wondering: are they going to serve the tiramisu with chocolate squeeze sauce and whipped cream?

My friend's pecan pie was pretty good, with a butterscotchy rich flavor, but I had only one bite-- it was really sweet, and more might have felled me right there to the mauve carpeted floor.

Fishy tales

I've been on a fishing adventure, sailing the high seas of-- well-- Central Ave., mostly. Alas, the Capital Region doesn't have a single great independent fresh fish market. You'd think we'd be awash in fish, since we're so close to Boston and New York harbors. But overfishing has affected the market, and it seems harder to get fresh fish in general. Buying fish has also become an ethical puzzle: do I go for the fish with higher mercury content that's not endangered? Or the endangered but safe-for-me fish?
There are a few places you can find good fresh fish in the Capital Region. Above is a photo of some of the fare at the China Supermarket on Colvin Ave. Based on what I saw there the one day I looked at the fish, I would not rely on them. However, they did have fresh (live) crabs... and more.


Covered in this review:

Cousins Fish Market
581 Livingston Ave
Albany, NY 12206
(518) 449-8830

Price Chopper
716 Hoosick Rd
Troy, NY 12180
(518) 266-9947

China Supermarket
91 Colvin Avenue, Albany
458-8166

I also heard about a place near the Home Depot plaza in East Greenbush that I have yet to check out.

First I went to Cousins, with great hopes of dockside barrel talk and Nor'easters. Alas, 'twas not so. I did buy some shrimp there, and I'm still alive after eating them, so that's the good news. Oddly, some of the shrimp tasted really good, but a few of them (I had maybe 5 or 6) tasted of iodine. I hear that's got something to do with what the shrimp eat, and it's not unhealthy. But it is irksome.
Cousins seems to serve a vital function as a neighborhood grocery/deli, with lots of takeout meats. You can even buy things like pasta and sauce there. But much of their fish and shellfish were frozen. In addition, the fish didn't look too appetizing: some of the fillets were lying in their own fish juice, not on well-drained ice, as they should be.

I'm not going to completely knock Cousins, because it's an independent store, and apparently they've been in Albany forever. And this Times Union writeup, from 2000, highly recommends their fish fry, which I did not get to try:
Cousins courtesy Times Union


Next on my menu was the China Supermarket on Colvin Ave., just off the busy Central Ave. across from Westgate Plaza.


Let me say right away that I really like the China Supermarket, and rely on them for some Chinese herbs that I use. They have absolutely wonderful, and incredibly low-priced spices, beans, rice, condiments, and an impressive produce aisle with fresh bok choy, long green beans, scallions, and the like. It's worth going to the China Supermarket for these things. However, the fish department seems touch and go.



This was a picturesque barrel of fresh crabs. I haven't the foggiest clue how to cook a crab, plus I'd have to kill it first, so I didn't jump for those.


I do feel I must point out that they also have fresh, live frogs. They do not look like happy frogs. They especially do not seem happy when a customer chooses them from their crowded tank to be placed in a suffocating plastic bag, from which they are summarily taken to have their heads chopped off.

Yes, I am a vegetarian partly because I don't believe it's right to eat animals. I draw my own personal line at fish. I don't eat fish often, but I do believe I need to eat some protein to stay healthy, and I like fish. Frogs have legs, so they just seem too close to 'animal' for my comfort.

At the same time, I must here point out that, in the China market's favor is that these are undeniably fresh. And I would vastly prefer supporting the China market, which is an independent business, and suffering whatever qualms I may as I pass by the frogs (and turtles), rather than patronize a big box style grocery store--where animal suffering may not be on immediate display, but you know it is lurking everywhere in the details. For surely it is a far worse crime that millions of chickens are raised in squalid conditions, debeaked, diseased, than that a small market play a small role in frog despair, when the market's benefit to the community is so great. In case you need to be convinced about the chickens, (click here for graphic depictions of the disgustingness that is the poultry industry in the US).

I can't help the way I feel about animals. But I can make educated choices.

Alas, for fresh fish, my choice is with the local supermarket chains, for reliability and freshness. I was really impressed by the knowledge of the fish department at the Price Chopper in Brunswick, where they had *fresh* : cod, Atlantic flounder and pollock, monkfish, swordfish, catfish (one of Ocean's Alive 'best' fish choices) and clams.

They also had pre-frozen fish, much of which, they explained, is "frozen at sea," which I guess seals in the freshness. They didn't say "flash" frozen, which is a new process used by fishermen now. I will have to enquire further.


In terms of frozen they had West Coast salmon steaks, wild USA shrimp, and many other things. They also had farmed tilapia (but farmed fish is not supposed to be good for the environment), and Wild Alaskan smoked salmon (which is okay for the environment but has lots of salt in it, which makes me retain water, which makes me seem to weigh more than I really do...).

Conclusion: you can do pretty well, either at Price Chopper in Brunswick or the Hannaford in Latham (I can't speak for the other locations-- anyone out there know?)

Where's the FISH??!

Forget where’s the beef. Where is the seafood in the Albany area? I’m a vegetarian who eats seafood, and I know fresh fish is healthy, low in bad fats, and high in healthy brain-food omega fatty acids. We in Albany live a mere three hours from Boston, and less than three hours from New York City up the Hudson River, so you’d think that this would be a watery, swimmin’ hub of seafood activity.

It is *so* not.

In today's blog I will cover restaurants. Next up, actual purveyors, where one can (in an ideal world) buy fresh fish to take home and cook.

A little background: the salmon I had at Tai-Pei the other week was some of the worst salmon I’ve ever had in my life, *counting* airplane food. After that horrid experience, I was determined to find fresh fish. I'm a woman with a mission. I already knew that Jack’s Oyster House is top of the list, with fresh fish prepared elegantly in a classy, Old Albany style setting.

Next comes the Real Seafood Co, although there’s a BIG distance between Jack’s and Real Seafood in classiness. Real Seafood is a more down-home, family friendly, almost diner-esque type restaurant, which you’d expect on Wolf Road. Real Seafood Co. is at 195 Wolf Road in Albany, tel. 518-458-2068.



My first experience with Real Seafood Co. was last week. Even though I’ve lived here for 8 years, I’d never wanted to go to this restaurant on Wolf Road with the huge lurid neon octopus sign out front (pictured above). It just looked-- scary. Kind of like the sleazy motel version of seafood. But then I heard from someone that it was actually a good place. So we went. And I was immediately reassured by the impressively long menu: name the fish, and you can pretty much get it here. And by the oyster bar, and the helpfully informative background on fish on their web page. They have total disclosure here in terms of what comes from where when, which is excellent.

Although, of note is that some of their fish is not top-of-the-line. The salmon is farmed, not Wild Alaskan salmon. Most of their seafood does seem to be fresh from the East coast, however, which is good. Click HERE for a printable list from Oceans Alive of ecologically and healthy fish choices to make!!!!! You NEED to take this list with you to ensure that you are not ordering something full of mercury or creatures from depleted stocks.

The good news first: my main course, which was the Lemon Cod, was excellent. Fresh, cooked just right, and with a simple breaded buttery lemony crumb and a side of sweet potato fries, this is just what I look for when I’m needing some extra omega-3s and sixes. Most of their main dishes come with potato and veg, and prices are reasonable.

Now the not-so-good news:

We waited. And we waited. And then, we had to wait. I’m talking, I watched my nails grow into talons while we waited for, first our appetizers--nothing exciting here: Asian-style tuna spring rolls, in which the tuna was indistinguishable from any other meat-unidentifiable object-or-tofu filler; and my clam chowder, which was abysmal--only a few languid clams, NOT fresh, in a Campbell’s-Cream-Soupy glutinous pasty broth-- then our main course. I swear my hair grew about an inch as we waited.

We arrived around 8:45, and there was a decent crowd, but not anywhere near a full house. So why the incredibly agonizing wait, while we watched the ornamental fishies in their aquariums swim doomfully around and around, and commented on and noted each object of acqueous decor (the fish-shaped planter, the jellyfish-like lamp)? Then, to add insult to injury, they started using a battery operated vacuum near our table as we finally started in on our main courses. I hate it when it's only 9:30 and restaurant staffers start cleaning up around you as you eat. Anyway, I know the wait was not due to lack of staff.

The other bad thing: my husband does not eat seafood, so we need a restaurant where he can also find good things to eat. And Real Seafood Co. does not, so far, do the trick here. They only have a couple of steaks and one pasta dish as non-fishy options. He asked if he could get the pumpkin ravioli appetizer as his main dish, which they courteously agreed to. It was basically pumpkin pie filling in ravioli, smothered in, again, a kind of Campbell’s-Cream-of-Mushroomey sauce.

Bleah.

But-- silver lining--my main course was very very good. Next time I go to this restaurant, I’m skipping the appetizer and asking to sit near the kitchen so we can be within closer nagging distance of the waitstaff. Or just telling my credit card to shut up and going to Jack’s.

Next: Cousins’, Hannaford/Price Chopper, Lee’s Market, suffering frogs, foreign national shrimps, and dull-eyed urchins!!!! Stay tuned at dish and dirt.

Not impressed with Tai-Pan

Tai Pan is in Half Moon, on Route 9, in a good location. What I mean by this is that if you liked their food, it would be easy to get there, from Clifton Park, Troy, Loudonville and Latham. Tai Pan is on 1519 Route 9, in Halfmoon; tel. 383-8581

But unfortunately, Tai Pan is very far away. I forgot. I forgot I didn't like their food, and it's not worth driving 20 minutes there. Then this weekend I thought suddenly, "Why don't we try Tai Pan?" It has an aura of respectability about it lacking in some of my favored dining institutions of the Capital Region. People who dress nicely go there to eat. I'd heard good things about their dim sum.

The building itself is nice, spacious inside with lots of wood. Nothing fancy, but it feels welcoming. The menu offers plentiful choices, with soups from Chicken or Vegetable Coconut soup with basil and lime to Lentil soup with mustard oil, tomato and chives. Appetizers also range from Thai and Vietnamese, with Vietnamese pork kebabs and Grilled pancake wrap with roasted duck, cucumber and cream sauce-- to Chinese (Dragon and Phoenix, Evil Jungle Prince-- sounds exciting!). I don't really know where to classify something called Orange 'n Steak 'n Scallop-- maybe Chinese-Hillbilly? Anyway, it sounded good and there *seemed* to be lots of yummy ethnically diverse fusiony choices. So I got the Laksa Lamak ("Spicy and sour rice noodle w/shrimp, bean curd puffs, and silky coconut broth") to start, which the waitress informed me was really the same thing as the vegetable coconut soup w/lime. Huh? Okay maybe I misunderstood, because it didn't have any lime flavor in it, and was instead a rather spicy curry soup. Not bad, but a bit too much, both size and spice-wise, for an appetizer. The curries on the whole here seemed muddy.

The other thing I must mention here is that everything took sooooo loooong that I was ready to schedule a hair dye appointment because I was greying. There seemed to be only one waitress for a fairly large section of the restaurant, and the restaurant itself is spacious, so she would just disappear for long periods of time. Lots of other people seemed to be waiting, too. How many of those crispy fried noodles can you eat with mustard sauce and duck sauce? I'd say that between our appetizers and main courses maybe about 40 minutes elapsed.

My husband's Vegetarian Rice Paper Rolls were quite good, despite not having any sweet potato as promised. For his main dish he ordered the sweet potato curry dish, which I tasted-- it was just okay. The curries here seem to be of the more heavy, confused variety (lots of cumin and turmeric and heat), not the bright vivid curries I tend to favor (I like freshly ground spices, cardamom, mustard seed, etc.). Anyway so his dish was okay, but mine was really horrible: I got the Grilled Salmon on Udon noodles, and first of all the salmon was dry. Second of all, nothing was particularly hot (temperature wise). Thirdly, the salmon came with a viscous sort of sauce on top, which seemed nothing more than some oyster sauce.

I brought home the portion of salmon I didn't eat for my cats.

Note to Albany business leaders, government officials, and entrepreneurial chefs: WE NEED WAY MORE GOOD RESTAURANTS HERE. Do something about this, someone. There is a lot of money here to be spent. People are desperate for good places to go out to eat. Places that aren't stuck in some sort of weird 20th century time warp. Please. Okay? Eliot Spitzer, I'm counting on you.

Home made soup from my garden

I cannot tell a lie: I prefer eating at home these days, mostly because my garden is bursting with produce. This is a picture of the yellow tomato soup I made the other day.

It was delicious and had a real tomato-ey flavor, despite the yellow color. It had exactly two ingredients:

1) Lillian's yellow heirloom tomatoes from my garden and
2) garlic, also from my garden.

It doesn't get much easier than that!
First, I boil the tomatoes each for about a minute, and peel the skins off. (The tomatoes get hot and can burn your hands, but if you wait another minute, it won't hurt!) Then quarter them and put them in a pot with garlic. Let simmer for about an hour, longer if you want a thicker soup. Then put all in a blender.

This is the way food is meant to be eaten: really fresh, totally organic of course, and just brimful of flavor.

Now, if we could only get some restaurants around here with the same philosophy....
Does anyone else around here grow Lillian's yellow? They are absolutely my favorite tomato, even better than the red tomatoes. I don't know why, they just are. They also come very late in the season. I've always been fond of late bloomers.

Illium Cafe: Where It's At

Troy is no longer lacking for coffee houses. We used to have just one-- the Daily Grind-- and now we have four and counting (Daily Grind, which moved a year or so ago to Third Street; Java ++, next to RPI; Illium Cafe; Shake Shake Mamas; and for a while the mysterious Mean Bean, whose atmosphere was just as uninspired as its coffee and food selections).

I want to get this out of the way up front: "Illium" as a word does not exist. There are two meanings for the spelling "Ilium" (*one* "L"): one of them means "Troy" (as in our intended meaning here); the other means part of the large intestine.

Ahem.

So "Illium" is some new kind of meaning. Oh and another thing to get out of the way: The Illium Cafe web site does not appear to be working at this moment. I'm including the link in case it decides to get its act together, though. Illium Cafe site here soon we hope.

And for me anyway, the jury is still out on exactly what this cafe will mean to Troy, as in Ilium, as in Ilium fuit, Troja est. For the past year or so, the Ilium cafe, despite its ideal location, was a fairly humdrum cafe, with just-okay coffee, some good tea choices, and dicey food. Once, I had a piece of quiche there that was the worst quiche I've ever had. And quiche should be easy to make!

Anyway, now there is a new owner and chef, Larry Shepici, whose Tosca Grill will be opening soon-- in November.

My first experience at the new and improved Illium was wonderful. I ordered a soup of the day-- there are usually two or three choices-- and it was one of the best potato soups I've ever had, potato with jalapeno. It was smooth and creamy with none of that watery taste that can sometimes bog a good potato soup down. It came with homemade croutons on top-- just the right touch. For dessert I had a slice of chocolate polenta cake, which was good and mysteriously trendy (see recent entry on Nicole's Bistro at Quackenbush). I can't say I'd order it again, but it was better than the choices used to be.

My second experience was okay, but not as blissful. I got the grilled vegetables on ciabatta, and it was just so-so. Plus, the service had started to annoy me; both times I've been there there has been some confusion as to where I place my order, when I pay, and exactly how the food is to be conveyed to my table (or not). Sometimes they bring the food over but sometimes (as when I ordered on my second visit a peanut butter cookie) they leave it sitting on the counter for you to pick up.

Plus, on my second visit I was sitting in front of two people who were apparently just released from the mental hospital. Now, I am a strong advocate of mental health. However, it is somewhat distressing to be trying to enjoy one's lunch when the conversation nearby consists of hopeless, despairing, and more depressing. ("If you want to be a shut-in, you can be a shut-in." "I'm not that kind of sick. I can't just lie down and get better.")

This is the problem Troy is up against. Troy seems to have attracted, with the power of a magnet, all the wretched, the tired, and the poor that the rest of America no longer has any time for.

However, at least for now, we're getting some decent coffee.

Nicole's Bistro at Quackenbush

For our anniversary, my husband and I went to Nicole's Bistro at Quackenbush, a French restaurant that has gotten excellent reviews in Times Union among other local rags. It's in an old brick building (dating at least to the 1700s, perhaps earlier) with wide worn wood planks and a cozy feel. There's a narrow bar at the front. Nicole's Bistro is located at 25 Quackenbush House Albany, right off 787. They think the building was at one point a Dutch family's kiln and pottery building, and they also think the building served as a garrison during the French and Indian War.

All intriguing stuff, really.

But what really counts is food. And is it good?

I'm going to depart from the other restaurant reviewers and say that honestly, I think you can do better for the money.

I started with a mixed-greens salad, pretty standard, but in with the nice fresh greens were several rotten leaves. And I don't mean just slightly yellow. I mean almost composted, and slimy.

Now, come on!! Everyone knows that when you buy greens, some of them can go bad pretty quickly. But you clean them, and you pick out the bad ones, folks. Don't serve them to your clients at a supposedly fancy restaurant. Yuck.

My husband's tomato and mozzarella appetizer with basil pesto was quite good; they had in-season flavorful tomatoes (why does *he* always luck out?!)

My scallop entry was very good: diver's scallops with a lime-cilantro sauce that wasn't too overpowering. They were fresh and cooked to perfection, and came with slivered carrots and tender haricots verts. My husband got the steak au poivre in brandy sauce, which was quite good, although they did NOT cook it well as he had requested. He was okay with it but really was craving more of the poivre, the pepper flavors, that come with true steak au poivre.

Desserts were only so-so. I got the peach tarte tatin, which was flavorful but texturally disappointing (peaches kinda mushy, and ditto on the crust). Hubs got a slice of the chocolate polenta, which was really a kind of ganache with some polenta in it. It was good, but seems trendy (see: upcoming blog entry on the Ilium cafe!!). And this seems really picky, but they did not fill my one-cup teapot for mint tea with hot water; it was only maybe 3/4 full, and as we were the only ones there at the time, it seemed kind of-- stingy.

The walls are painted pink, there are some charming prints of Albany. But the whole effect of the paint, the somewhat shabby carpeting, the self-consciousness of the whole 'fancy dining' experience--was overweening. A fancy (read: expensive) restaurant should be classy and understated, so that you are made to feel that you are experiencing the ordinary elevated, as it really ought to be. The best upscale restaurants make me think: "Every night should be like this! This is how to live!" Not: "God, this is stuffy and expensive, let's go home and get more comfortable." True fine dining elevates the mundane until it feels beautiful, and makes the exotic comfortable.

The rotten salad greens detail was bad, but oddly, not enough to make me overall nix on the restaurant. No: it was the combination of so-so food (for the price: we paid a total of $97 plus tip, and no drinks) plus the somewhat worn atmosphere more than anything else. There were a number of other parties dining when we got there, but we closed the place (at what, like 9 pm I think. Come on people, we can keep restaurants open longer around here!! This is a complaint against Albany in general, though, not this particular restaurant). Our waiter gave good recommendations, and they kept an eye on us, but something was missing (maybe excitement? Joie de vivre?)

Well, we need fine restaurants, and I wish Nicole's Bistro the best. They are close to something really good, and maybe it's gone downhill since the previous rave reviews. I think what they need is a revamping of the menu (less sauce on the whole, more simplicity, some more vegetarian/pasta entrees), maybe a vacation for the proprietors, and some better feng shui. It can't be good for your karma to be so close to 787 (Take out the old carpeting, paint it red instead of pink, play some soft music and replace those dorky vine-encrusted candle holders on the table with something simple and classic.)