“Oh, I didn’t mind—it helped keep me on my diet.”
That was how my fiancée’s mother responded to my apologies that our lunch out wasn’t up to my usual standards. It also epitomizes our experience at Mangia.
My fiancée and I had decided to take her mother to one of our new favorite places over in Stuyvesant Plaza, but discovered that it was closed for a few days for some remodeling. Hungry and unwilling to get back in the car, we decided to try Mangia, since we hadn’t been there before.
The restaurant itself is nice, with lots of seating and plenty of space between tables. We were shown to a table quickly enough, but otherwise service was rather slow, a major flaw during lunchtime on a weekday.
Glancing over the menus revealed an adequate selection of dishes, with prices that were a touch higher that I would expect for lunch, but the buffet at $5.95 certainly sounded like a good deal, and I opted for that. My fiancée ordered a personal-size Greek pizza, and her mother went with the chicken Caesar salad.
The buffet was fairly disappointing. They had some salad, a few different kinds of pizza, a pasta dish (ravioli), a couple of vegetables, and some garlic bread. In addition, nearly everything was drenched in oil—the ravioli, the bread—even the salad dressing had too much oil in it.
The Greek pizza was okay, but hardly anything special, and my future mother-in-law’s opinion of her meal has already been eloquently expressed.
In short, just don’t go to Mangia for lunch.
Mangia’s is in Stuyvesant Plaza near Crossgates Mall. To get there, cross the river and get on I-787 South. Take the exit for I-90 West, and go to Exit 2, Fuller Road. Make a left at the end of the ramp, and go for about 1.5 miles. Stuyvesant Plaza is on the right just before the road ends at Western Ave.
