The Point Restaurant and Lounge

"The Point--it's on point."

My fellow diners suggested that I start my review off with that clever phrase.  (thanks, guys!) There were four of us dining that evening, and it gives you an idea of how all of us felt about the whole experience.

The Point is an impressive restaurant, and you instantly feel as though you are robed in swank-ness when you walk in the door.  The steakhouse vibe and candle-stick lighting on the tables of the main dining room also make for great pictures when celebrating a friend's birthday or anniversary.  

The servers, dressed all in black, do seem almost intimidatingly hip to engage in conversation with--yet, they provide attentive service and prove to be not only friendly, but incredibly knowledgeable on the menu.  I leaned on them for all of my choices, and ended up ordering the pasta special: a ravioli dish with spinach, goat cheese, garlic, and artichoke.  You have the option of a half or full portion of the pasta special. Take advice from wise old Mel B.--just order the full portion.  Let me explain:

The dinner opens with fresh bread and apple-cinnamon butter.  I ate a lot of it, and did not remember politeness or consideration for my friends once I noticed that there were real granny smith apple slivers in the butter.   After ordering lemon-pepper frites for the table and stuffing myself with bread and that glorious butter, I thought the half-portion would be enough.   It came with probably five large raviolis, but it was really light and delicious.  I wanted so much more.  

It was my friend's birthday, but she was so full from her Plum Tomato pizza (this girl stole a piece of that too: I was a food monster that evening, but I had to write this review: mmm so good!), that she didn't think she could fit a piece of their legendary "slice of cake." (apparently, the portion consists of half of an entire cake).  The Point didn't care. They brought her over a "tiny" piece of their drizzled Sweet Potato Cake (the flavor of the day, and what amounted to, eh, probably one-third of an entire cake).  All four of us took a fork to that "slice," and we could barely finish it.  However, it was awesome and terribly pretty. We asked for coffee to cap off the dinner, and it came in glass mugs that captured the candlelight of the table and added to the magic of the meal.

I'm going to (lightly) poke at The Point. I typically require that if a restaurant is having multiple dining room identity crises, that there is at least one, overarching theme tying them altogether. I guess the theme weaving the four dining areas at The Point is that you can eat in them, and they are all well-decorated.

The main dining area gives off that steakhouse feel I mentioned above, with brick walls, iron decor, and nice windows to the far side of the room and that humongous candlestick in the middle of the table. Love!

There are also three more private rooms for dining. My favorite was past the main dining area and to the right--The Madison Mirror Room.  A long narrow room, in tones of spring-moss green and putty, there are many various mirrors whimsically placed on the ceiling. Three different Moroccan-inspired light pendants hung in a row between them. Very Alice in Wonderland.

But then-THEN!-There is a third room, and it does pull in the putty and moss colors and the candlesticks from the other two, but it looks like a formal dining room. I could imagine a nice work dinner or anniversary meal with family in that space.  

The fourth room threw me for a loop. Walking in, you see tables set into what look like alcoves in the wall.  Stacked up in the center of the wall of the room, on shelves, are five old TVs playing snow or blurry pictures.  By the time I saw that room, I didn't know where I was anymore.  

What I do know is that The Point is a great restaurant for a magical dinner--I'm sure in any of their rooms.

In town for business, The Point was recommended as a place where I could get a good cocktail and a great dinner.  I'd also heard it was a little on the trendy side, and while I go out of my way to avoid hipster locales, it seems a good cocktail is hard to come by in Albany, so I decided to suck it up.  Came in around 6:15 on Monday and was surprised how empty the place was.  I read a few reviews online and was under the impression this was a great spot for the young professional crowd - there were two seats at the bar taken by twenty-somethings and two 4 top tables were occupied by the geriatric crowd.  Otherwise, the place was empty, so I sat at the bar.  Some prior reviews mentioned jazz music, but there was nothing playing today.

Bartender was a young man who answered in the affirmative that they carried Woodford Reserve, so I asked for an Old Fashioned, and a dinner menu.  I watched the bartender make my drink, because if you ask ten bartenders how to make an Old Fashioned, you'll get ten different answers, and being particularly picky over this cocktail, I wanted to see what he would do.  Bartender muddled bitters, cherry, and orange in the glass, added ice, a 2 ounce pour of bourbon, and filled the remainder of the glass with club soda.  The ratio of bourbon to soda was about 65:35.  You shouldn't muddle the fruit, and he completely forgot to include sugar or a simple syrup - the drink was lacking any sweetness outside the bourbon.  Ideally, no club soda should be used, but if it has to be, then a mere splash is all that is required.  Way too much club soda in this drink.  I'd give it a C+ because while a lot of things weren't done right, it was (sadly) better than many places I've encountered in recent memory.

Reviewed the dinner menu and was thoroughly unimpressed with the offerings, and the specials sounded uninspired.  Most of the dishes were heavy on sauces (especially the steaks) which seems counter intuitive to me.  I passed on dinner and settled on the one cocktail.  $12 ($9 for the drink, $3 for the tip) and fifteen minutes later I left, still looking for dinner.  The place added two more people to a high top in the bar area before I left, but otherwise it was pretty much empty.

Final score is 2 stars. "Wait a minute, you gave the Old Fashioned a C+, which surely merits three stars, and probably 3.5 - so how do you give this place two?"  While the cocktail might get a C+, I came in looking for dinner and left with a still-empty stomach.  The dishes also appeared a bit on the pricey side, so the two star description, "Meh, I've experienced better" fits this excursion like a glove.  The website touts The Point as, "Albany's newest upscale restaurant and lounge."  A description like that conjures up images of a classic interior, with emphasis on fresh food that stars on its own, and bartenders mixing classic cocktails properly.  That's not what I saw on my visit.

I was a very young lad back in the 1849 San Francisco gold rush, but The Point really takes me back.  The Atmosphere is just like someone built a tavern into a gold mine.  It's got a rustic feel, it's very dark, and it's also very loud.  They did a marvelous job with their 49er's themed restaurant.

Now the ideal clients of The Point are giants.  It's a bold move, I know, as there are very few giants in Albany, New York.  Since there weren't any giants when my wife and I showed up, they sat us in their spot.  The tables are very high, and I started getting self-conscious about how high I had to lift my elbows, as if letting my armpits dry out.  I'm self-conscious around my wife because she is a very classy lady and if I don't keep impressing her, she'll realize that she's way too good for me and she'll leave me for a giant who can sit at this table without looking like he forgot deodorant.

The place is rather noisy.  I don't hear that well because when I was young, I worked in the mines during the San Francisco gold rush, and we didn't protect our hearing while setting off dynamite.  Man, we thought we were immortal back in those days.  But now my hearing isn't so good, and I had trouble hearing what my wife had to say.  So instead of listening, I based all of my responses off of her body-language.  We've been married for 6 years, so I'm kind of a pro at this.
The food is kind of a let-down.  When I order a $25 plate, I expect it to meet a certain expectation of taste, or a certain expectation of quantity.  The food is good, but it's not $25 good.  I also like to think that if I'm paying a lot of money, that I shouldn't be able to go home and cook the very same dish for about a third of the cost.  I want pzazz.  I want art.  I want a dish that takes me back to the roaring 1920's where a steak would put hair on your chest, dreams in your heart, and a
whistle on your tongue.

The service is attentive, almost overly so.  I drink a lot of water, and they were there.  Always.  It was like an omnipresent drink refiller at my beck-and-call.  Except I wasn't calling, she was just there, pouring an endless stream of water.  Our main waiter was also around a lot, making sure everything was ship shape.  I appreciate it, but it made it hard to make facial reactions with what I imagined my wife was saying when I had to keep dividing my attention between her, the ever-present waterfall, and the waiter guy.