Maybe the Best Food Deal in the Capital Region: Lunch at Tara Kitchen in Schenectady

K and I recently spent parts of five days in Boston for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference (AWP), trying to avoid being sucked into a vortex of hipster creative writers.  That's part of the reason for my recent hiatus from blogging here.  The other part is the mutant virus I caught while there, maybe exacerbated by the wicked ugly blizzard, as I believe some might say in Boston, that we walked through for a few days.  It was a fun trip despite those nastier elements, and we managed to eat our way through the city in a pretty satisfying manner--I'll be documenting some of those adventures soon.

But one food-related regret from our time in Boston is that we didn't manage to get to Baraka Cafe in Cambridge, even though we spent our final night only blocks from the restaurant and had a high recommendation of the restaurant from K's brother, who went to college just a few blocks away.  We'd eaten already during a stroll down Mass Ave. and simply couldn't pack one more meal into our bellies.  A shame, though being only a few hours away from the city tempers some of that regret.  We'll eat there eventually.

Another thing that makes it easier to forget missing out on Baraka is the presence of Tara Kitchen in Schenectady.  I know this restaurant, which opened just about a year ago, has gotten some rave reviews and good publicity already, but I noticed it missing in Metroland's Readers Poll results.  And after having lunch there just once so far, I can say that its exclusion is at least a small shame.

Lunch at Mingle / Reevaluating Korean Choices and Dining Costs in Albany

Sometimes, K and I wonder if we get ourselves too excited by a restaurant on our first visit simply because they do a decent job with food that we haven't had--or had in decent form--for some time.  Revealing this excitement is a risk of reviewing a place after just one visit.

Fortunately, I can do whatever I please here on this little blog of mine, and I think it's only fair to return to restaurants and update how I find things with more context and more meals under my belt.  And that's what I'm doing today with Kinnaree Asian Restaurant, which I wrote about pretty glowingly back in September.

We've eaten there a couple times since that initial visit, and I'll get into those visits shortly.  But what also prompts this reevaluation of Korean food in Albany is the visit K and I paid to Mingle, a restaurant on Delaware Avenue in Albany that makes some seriously good Korean food to go with an interesting assortment of what might be called American cuisine.  That's what I mean in saying "more context."

I hate to say it, because they seem like nice folks at Kinnaree (and I'm sure we'll be back in time), but eating there within a couple weeks of having lunch at Mingle only served to amplify the differences in quality and execution at the two restaurants.  And it's funny--this change of heart comes right after Metroland published a laudatory review of Kinnaree (and less than a year after the Times-Union did the same, calling it "a bargain," which inspires some grumpiness from me at the end of this post).  I swear I'm not just trying to be contrary.

More Stouts: Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro and Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout

A week after talking about a pair of very good stouts, I'm back with more.  And I'm not talking about these stouts.  Not this time, at least.  They are adorable, though, aren't they?

The stouts I want to talk about this week are a pair I've had before: the Left Hand Milk Stout (though never before in Nitro form) and Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout.  It's not like they're unusual or haven't been talked about by a million or so people on the internet before, but I don't care--they're both pretty great, and the Nitro looked so nice when poured that I just had to share some pictures.  Like the one above.

And take one look outside.  It is definitely still stout weather.

Some Thoughts on Guacamole (Including Trader Joe's Reduced Guilt Chunky Guacamole)

I've been on a big guacamole kick lately.  I'm not about to try to explain it--it's not like it's related to the Super Bowl (didn't have or attend a party, didn't even watch much of the game, yet we still had some guacamole).  I suppose you could say it's somehow a physiological thing--my body craving all that avocado fat here in the cold of my first Albany winter.

Whatever it is, I think we're done with all the guacamole binging for now.  It was a fun little ride, experimenting with levels of lime juice, jalapenos versus cayenne, that sort of thing.  But last week, just after we'd sworn we were done with guacamole for a while, we returned home from a trip to Trader Joe's and I discovered that K had picked up some of their Reduced Guilt Chunky Guacamole, made with Greek yogurt.  Color me intrigued.  (I'm not sure what color "intrigued" actually is--probably somewhere close to fuchsia on the Crayola spectrum.)

Before I get to yet another Trader Joe's product review, indulge me--or don't; scroll right down to the pertinent information--as I pontificate momentarily on guacamole.

A Dark and Strong Duo: Great Lakes Blackout Stout and Otter Creek Russian Imperial Stout

As I write this, the wind chill here in Albany is currently -3 degrees.  In other words, it's still the season for stouts--maybe imperial stouts, to be specific, with their warming, high-ABV booziness.

By this time next month maybe I'll be making my transition toward lighter beers, enjoying a few Irish red ales around St. Paddy's Day before that natural downswing toward IPAs and eventually witbiers and the like.  But I still have a few stouts left to help myself through this long final stretch of winter, and I'd be remiss to not make a couple recommendations from this batch.

When it comes to Russian Imperial Stouts, I use Bell's Expedition Stout as a measuring stick.  I finally had this beer on tap a year ago and was blown away by its complexities.  So, how do Great Lakes' Blackout Stout and Otter Creek's Russian Imperial Stout stand up to the Bell's?  Pretty well, I must say.

What Might Have Been for St. Joseph's and Ravens Head: Remembering Pittsburgh's Church Brew Works

Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh (left); St. Joseph's in Albany (right)

This might initially seem like a negative post, and in a way it is.  But positives first: Ravens Head Brewing, which had a lengthy dalliance with St. Joseph's Church in the Ten Broeck neighborhood of Albany, has settled on what seems like a great space for their brewery and restaurant--the Cohoes Armory.  So anyone looking forward to tasting Ravens Head's beers in a unique location in the Capital Region can rest easy--we might be able to do so before the end of this year.  And that's a great thing for this area.

But in my typical backwards way of doing things, I want to spend a little time thinking of what could have been, not what actually will be.  And I like to think I have some justification for doing so, in that I lived for a few years in Pittsburgh, where Church Brew Works operates a brewery/restaurant out of a gorgeous old church, and I can speak first hand to just how awesome an experience it was to go there for a meal and a beer.

Here's a disclaimer before I get in too deep: I'm new here, I don't know much about all the politics that govern the Albany area, and I can understand the concerns people had about St. Joseph's being turned into a brewery/restaurant considering what seems like a residential location.

That being said, if Ravens Head could have turned St. Joseph's into anything like what Pittsburgh has in Church Brew Works, we've missed out on something incredible here in Albany.