In Brockport (near Rochester), there’s this wonderful little Italian restaurant, known as Tre Grazie, right on Main St. It has good food, a nice atmosphere, and friendly staff, but you would never know it just driving by—the storefront is basically a doorway that you wouldn’t look twice at if you didn’t know any better.
What, you might ask, does this have to do with dining in the Capital District? Simple—there are many similar places in this area. Downtown, there is Lo Porto, which—save for one particular experience of mine last year—serves excellent food and also has a minimal storefront. Another establishment of this nature is Cilantro, on Central Ave. in Colonie.
Cilantro is tucked into the Air-Tite Business Center (made famous by everyone’s least favorite radio personality, Justin Resnick) and very, very easy to miss. From its looks, you certainly wouldn’t expect much.
Inside is a bit better, but still very plain. There are only eight tables or so in the whole place, and the decoration is very spartan. Music was playing when my fiancée and I walked in, and that warmed the atmosphere a bit.
We went for the lunch buffet, which costs the standard Albany price of $5.95 per person. There was a selection of five dishes available (three vegetarian, two with meat), all fairly typical of Pakistani/Indian food. We helped ourselves to a bit of each and sat down.
Overall, we decided that the food was good, if a bit less spicy than many of the other places in the area. I particularly enjoyed one dish based on ground-up chickpeas (I’m not really sure what it was called), but the chicken curry seemed a bit bland. Certainly, it was well worth what we paid, and the dinner prices are similar—$8 for the buffet and
$5 - $10 for the various entrees.
One caveat: Cilantro has very limited hours. Sunday through Thursday the restaurant is open only for the lunch buffet from 11 am – 2 pm. On Fridays and Saturdays they remain open until 9 pm. However, if you’re in the area at the right time, definitely drop in and give Cilantro a try.
Cilantro is located at 1531 Central Ave., just west of the Northway in Colonie. To get there, take Route 7 west out of Troy, and get on I-87 south in Latham. Continue down I-87 to exit 2W. Stay to the right coming off of the ramp—don’t bother merging into traffic as the restaurant is almost immediately on the right.
The Cilantro Pakistani Cuisine is located on Central Ave., Colonie.
6.5 out of 10
