Table setting at Seasoned at SUNY Adirondack
The excellent Casola Room at Schenectady County Community College is doing takeout only during COVID, so we tried a new place with a similar program: Seasoned Restaurant at SUNY Adirondack in Glens Falls, NY. We were drawn by Facebook photos posted by local butcher Emily Petersen of the work done by students in her primal cuts class. We wanted some of that beef!
The pass at Seasoned.
Programs like this exist primarily for the benefit of the students, so you need to jump through some reasonable hoops to eat there. Seasoned serves lunch on Wednesdays only from 11:30-12:30, dinner from 5:45-7 pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays and a takeout lunch on Thursdays from 11:45-1:00 only. You’ll need to follow health protocols including a questionnaire before you enter (also available in an online app to save time). For your trouble, you’ll be rewarded with a creative three-course meal in a fine dining setting at a fair price–$15.95 at lunch, $26.95 for dinner (which adds a fourth course) including beverage, plus tax and tip. A wine pairing is available.
Rabbit Leg with burnt onion and a small whole sweet potato (not shown) plus fennel foam.
We really liked the creativity of the SeasonsMenu on the day we dined, eg “Honey Basted Rabbit Leg. Baked Sweet Potato. Burnt Onion. Fennel Mustard Air.” Since we had traveled a good distance we also sampled a second three-course meal including a serving of balsamic marinated flank steak so we could try some of the fruits of Chef Petersen’s butchery class.
Seasoning was a bit cautious, as you might expect in this setting; you don’t want a first-semester student to ruin a nice and expensive piece of protein. Presentation was excellent. Service was… as we have found at Casola Room and when dining at the Culinary Institute of America, chef training students are there to learn cooking and show few chops when pushed to the front of the house. But our server was pleasant and kept his mask over his nose, most of the time.
Lemon Chiffon Pie at Seasoned.
If you want to go, check the website first to be sure school is in session and they’re serving. Seasoned is in a new medical building just north of Glens Falls Hospital; the entrance is on Hudson St which is to the side of the main entrance facing the hospital.
Correction: an earlier version of this post had the name as Seasons; Seasoned is the correct name of the restaurant.
I have enjoyed lunch at a culinary school in Orange County, California. The food was always well prepared and served with style. The servers were also the chefs and they were quite friendly. They enjoyed explaining what they had prepared. Often they used fresh herbs that they grew at the school. It has been several years since I ate there. After the pandemic I will return. Once I attended a tasting at the school. About sixty people joined the special event and the guest speaker was a chef from Anaheim’s Disneyland Hotel. She told us that many of the herbs used to prepare food at Disneyland were grown on the property in plain sight. The gardeners used the herbs in the landscape and at night harvested herbs to be used in some of the food served at the Park and in the Hotels. They have a team of gardeners who come in at midnight to tend to the landscapes so that when visitors arrive in the morning everything is perfect. Eating at culinary arts schools is a good way to learn more about the possibilities of preparation of food.
That’s a nice touch, using your own herbs and explaining them to the guests. I have not experienced that at any of my culinary school experiences, nor when I was in culinary school myself in LA.