Table Scraps on Wolf Road
Wolf road in Colonie, NY, never seizes to amaze me. How it continues to accommodate so many chain restaurants, many only six degrees separated in quantity and quality, without draining the pool of privately owned restaurants is a real blessing.
In a city with fewer than a million hungry mouths every parking lot at Chili's, Moe's, P.F. Chang's, Fuddruckers, The Fox and the Firkin, Cheesecake Factory and Buca di Beppo was full tonight. Full parking lots say a lot about the economic health and wellness of the Capital Region and while our waistlines stretch so do our wallets. I'm sure Mayor Jennings couldn't be more pleased that the recession isn't affecting our appetites.
Of course, this is not haute cuisine we're talking about. Chains offer cheap, greasy, dependable and convenient food with quick service. Generally chains are overrun with customers but that's never a bad thing for the bottom line. Waiting in line at Ruby Tuesdays, Ninety Nine or Old Chicago Pizza and Pasta is a privilege for anyone who loves deep fried mediocrity. The other problem with busy chains is the decibel level in conversations. Between the background music, babies wailing and general chatter, there's an assault on my earlobes and who do you know who's good at reading lips?
But chains serve a purpose and if some could make a small effort to serve intricately seasoned, fresh-tasting entrees with local ingredients, I'd wait in line as well. If not, I'll still go because there's always a boffo view of a hockey or football game at the bar counter.
posted by Sonja Stark of PilotGirl™ @ 11:04 PM
3 Comments:
With kids, we often don't get to eat at places that don't offer crayons to color on the place mats.
We really enjoy Nothing But Noodles on Rt. 7 in Latham. They serve "grown-up" quality food that the kids enjoy too in a family-friendly atmosphere. The noise level isn't usually too bad either.
Moe's is basically the Mexican-Southwestern version of Noodles. I think they're run by the same company. That's not a bad thing, as I love that kind of food. I was psyched to see the new Moe's open on Wolf Rd.
I truly wish there were a national chain of restaurants with fresh, top-quality but affordable vegetarian dishes, from fruit and salad bars to crepes to fruit smoothies, yogurt granola breakfasts, real bread, veggie chili, rice dishes cheesecake and more. There plenty of excellent vegetarian recipes out there but, to my knowledge, no one has tried this concept even regionally. That's where I'd head to on Wolf Road and anywhere else I could find one on my travels.
With regard to noise level, that's a solvable problem which restaurants seldom try to solve. If you can have smoking and non-smoking areas, you can have kiddie and non-kiddie areas with sound-baffles in the one and non-obtrusive music in the other. All cell phones would need to be put on vibrate, of course, and patrons encouraged to carry on their conversations in a sound booth.
We have a new place out in the western burbs of Chicago - not a chain restaurant - but a vision of a young guy that wanted to serve good food in a great setting - The Turf Room - I have been there many, many times and it has always been good!
as it should
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