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Hey… guess who finally located her camera USB cord? Right after she remembered her desktop had a camera card reader?

Let’s start off with this pretty picture of the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, N.Y. Wasn’t it a beautiful day? It wasn’t raining for a change. Ahh the memories…

I’ve actually been postponing this restaurant review, because I feel weird that they don’t have a decent web site. Look at it. Pathetic. It’s part of their charm, I suppose. It’s a dinky, old diner located in the warehouse section of the city. It was once used as a set for the utterly depressing film, Ironweed, which starred some folks you may have heard of: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, me… Okay, so maybe my part was smaller than theirs. I’ve never actually seen the whole thing you know. I read the book and so was flattened by it, that I couldn’t bring myself to watch the whole movie. Just the first ten minutes, until I show up waaay in the background. Anyhoo, if you’ve seen the movie, the diner still looks like that.

The Miss Albany Diner is a complete greasy spoon. No doubt about it.

And it tastes just like a greasy spoon should! Delicious!!

I think the sunshine went to my head, though, because I didn’t so much grasp the concept when I ordered the lean sausage. Yeah, lean. Non-fatty. A few herbs instead of fat. At a diner. Not good enough. Despite it being made in their kitchen, I wouldn’t recommend it.

My boyfriend, however, has excellent taste. He ordered the Mad Irish Toast. It has pecan cream cheese between the french toast slices, and is drowned in a butterscotch whiskey sauce.

Uhh, yeah. Get that. Definitely get that. I snuck a bite or two, and it was delicious.

It is a shame the website doesn’t have their menu on it though. There is really a lot of interesting, different stuff on there. If you live in the area, or ever visit, you should check it out.

I have the best book club in the world. Once a month, about five to seven of us girls get together at some yummy restaurant and talk about stuff. Sometimes about the book we were supposed to read*, but oftentimes not.

This month, we went to the Stockade Inn in Schenectady, NY (That’s upstate, in the Capital Region, for you folks not aware).

It’s located in the lovely stockade district, which floods a lot so you probably don’t want to live there. But visiting is okay. The Inn itself was fairly devoid of customers. The inn told us this was a summer thing. I’ve been before, in winter, and indeed, people do go there.

Despite the lack of people, it didn’t feel awkward or desperate. The wait staff didn’t hover. That’s really important to me. I hate it when the server is whipping your plate away the second you finish eating, or is refilling the water after every sip. It’s like, I know you’re bored (as I used to wait tables too), but find something else to do. You’re cramping my conversation! Please.

So they didn’t hover. The server did have a little wine spilling incident though.

By some weird coincidence, each member of our party was dressed in black and white. It looked like we planned it or something. I was amused. But… red wine on L’s white pants = unfortunate. I bet next month, we all show up in red. But the Inn apologized profusely and offered to pay up if it doesn’t come out. They also made her a special yummy vegetarian entree because there wasn’t one on the menu. So, accidents happen. It was all handled quite well.

Anyhoo. The food. The first adjective that comes to mind is ENORMOUS. The portions were huge. Holy crap. Most of us got appetizers in addition to our entrees, and we got two desserts in the end too. I think we are all set on leftovers for a week.

This was my lunch today, half of my Surf & Turf Bruschetta appetizer.

It was good, but I was full after eating half an appetizer. Look at the size of that thing. It’s hanging off my plate. And there were two of them. It was very pretty in its original plating though. This place seems to like drizzling glaze all over everything. I liked it, but not everyone did.

I also tasted the Crispy Calamari. It was delicious. Light and not slimy. I see now that the sauce had that lemon-butter thing going on that I love. Not surprising.

I stuck with the steak for dinner. I was in that kind of mood. The Prime Sirloin came with monterey jack & bacon mashed potatoes, broccolini, warm gorgonzola cream, and shallot bacon shiraz demi glaze. Most of the sirloin is in my fridge right now, frankly, but I managed to get the mashed potatoes down. I was told that the Seared Sea Scallops were tasty as well.

For dessert, we ordered two huge pieces of pie. There was a peanut-buttery one that wasn’t too sweet. And a coconut one that was simply divine. I love coconut, so that was right up my alley. But even the self-professed coconut-dislikers thought this pie was great. Again, the portions were huge and most of it was brought home in a doggie bag.

* This month I did very well and finished “The Thirteenth Tale” well ahead of schedule. I thought it was a bit squicky at first, but ultimately an entertaining, if soap-opera-ish, read.

** I was going to take more pictures of the food, but my camera battery died. Sorry ’bout that.