The Standard

Tonight was a girl’s night with my friend Gabby! 😀

(Here we are a couple years ago celebrating at our friend Wendy’s baby shower – Gabby is in the black shirt) 🙂

I met Gabby almost 2 years ago when I worked briefly for Albany Medical Center.  (By briefly, I mean 3 months…).  Even though I was only there for such a short time, we’ve still kept in touch all this time.  We try to get together at least once every couple months, and she was with me to celebrate at my wedding! 🙂

So Gabby and I met up for dinner at The Standard, a restaurant & lounge that opened a few years back here in Albany.  It’s actually located right in our major mall, which is nice and fabulously convenient 😉

They have an awesome outdoor dining area, but I think the 95 degree weather had everyone INDOORS today!

The Standard’s menu features over 100 items, all of which are based off the “standard” or “classic” dishes that people have come to know and love when dining out, but with a unique twist.  They have dishes ranging from classic Macaroni & Cheese, to their signature entrees such as Miso Glazed Sea Bass and Horseradish Crusted Filet Mignon.

I honestly have a love/hate relationship when it comes to restaurants with big menus like this.  I love the fact that I have so many options to choose from, yet I hate it for exactly the same reason!  I’m SUCH an indecisive person…well maybe I’m not….no, I think I am….wait, am I? 😉

When we first got to our table, we served a basket of fresh sourdough bread. YUM!  I was starving by the time we sat down to eat, so I quickly snagged a piece.

While I was checking out the menu earlier to try to prepare myself, I came across a dish on the appetizer menu that sounded right up my alley: Roasted Vegetables & Brie

The dish featured “assorted roasted vegetables with candied roasted garlic, warm double-cream brie, and grilled crostinis”.

This stuff was A-MAZING!! 😀  The vegetables included were zucchini, eggplant, and roasted red peppers.  The combo of the crostini + creamy brie + veggies was pure heaven.  I ended up have 2 crostinis with veggies & brie.  The one thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was the amount of oil you could taste in the veggies (I could literally see it bubbled up on my plate).  Obviously, I know that restaurants use much more of this stuff than I would…I guess I’m used to my version of roasted veggies, which are not dripping in oil!  But despite the extra oils, they were still delicious!  And I most certainly could have polished off the rest of the brie, but I knew I had to save room for my meal.  So what did Ms. Indecisive end up ordering?

Penne Telefono – “Sauteed chicken, plum tomatoes, garlic, melted mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil”

The pasta dish was really good, but I was more impressed with the roasted veggies.  There was nothing wrong with my pasta dish by any means; the chicken was tender, not fatty, the sauce had great flavor, and the basil and garlic flavors really complimented the dish nicely.  But at the same time, it almost seemed like something I could have made at home for myself…for a lot cheaper! 😉

Nonetheless, Gabby and I were having such a good time chatting and catching up, that things ended up disappearing from my bowl a lot quicker than I expected.  Like, quicker as in I had NO leftovers to bring home. 😳

I left the restaurant definitely feeling stuffed and am still pretty uncomfortable.  You know, I usually try really hard to pay attention to my hunger & fullness cues when eating, but tonight I let my chatty self get the best of me.  I’m feeling a little disappointed right now, but there’s no sense in dwelling on it, so I’m just going to move on and start fresh tomorrow! 🙂 Healthy balance, right?!?

So I think my favorite part of The Standard, besides the food, is the totally funky, retro yet classic decor.

I LOVE these huge lights!  I want them for my house! 😉

There’s pictures of classic actors & actresses all throughout the restaurant walls too which is super fun – Gabby and I were basically dining with Frank Sinatra & Audrey Hepburn tonight. 😉

I had a nice view of the kitchen from my seat.  Pretty neat!

The bar area has a great vibe to it too – funky! (Haha, when I first went to type that, I definitely typed “drunky”) 😉

Gabby & I had a SUPER fun time tonight!  I wish I could see her more often! 😀

Time to go roll myself into bed now. 😉

Do you ever let extra socializing at a meal get in the way of your hunger cues?