photo:Teri Currie

Dining Inn
By B.A. Nilsson

Holiday Inn Turf, 205 Wolf Road, Colonie, 458-7250. Serving lunch Mon-Fri 11:30-2:30, dinner daily 5-10, brunch Sun 10-2 (except holidays, which have dinner menus). AE, D, MC, V

Cuisine: American hotel

Entrée Price Range: $16 (stuffed chicken) to $29 (beef and crab cake Napoleon)

Ambiance: unthreateningly pleasant

By necessity, hotel restaurants are a breed apart. Intended to please the captive traveler, they experiment with themes and cuisines, too aware that a world of chain restaurants competes right outside. This is exemplified by Wolf Road’s stretch of many eateries, most of them stamped from the same masters that offer refreshment on any airport-neighborhood thoroughfare.

A profile of the traveler is thus revealed as one who is unadventurous of palate and thus frightened of a never-before-seen menu, unsocial unless cocktail-primed. You and I aren’t like that, of course, and are challenged, when traveling, to penetrate beyond the safety net. But what’s going on in our own backyard?

The Holiday Inn Turf is a Wolf Road mainstay that predates most of the chain eateries that line the street, and its restaurant has evolved in an attempt to hold its own in a crowded market. It aims at a more upscale clientele, much of which, I suspect, comprises travelers with expense accounts who don’t mind paying a little extra in order to remain in the facility at mealtime.

The Turf House Grille is a pleasant, slightly bland room crisscrossed with waist-high dividers; tables are scattered among them and also line the walls. Low-level but plentiful lighting and colorful artwork help liven the room. Menus decorate the entrance, so there should be no surprises. You’re greeted nicely at the door and the process begins.

During my visits, business was slow enough that only a couple of servers worked the floor; the few of us having dinner were spaced for a sense of privacy but close enough to give a feeling of community.

This has drawbacks, of course. One of my neighbors punctuated her dinner with loud cell phone conversations; another taught me more about real estate than I was expecting to learn.

But those were minor irritations. The Turf House Grille staff is so friendly, and the atmosphere was so easygoing that I enjoyed journeying through the menu.

There are two of them, actually, but you’ll have to ask for the menu of lighter fare. That’s where you’ll find the chicken wings and mozzarella sticks, but you’ll pay $7 to $8 for them. A chicken Caesar salad ($9) is just as you’d expect, although the one we checked out arrived, mysteriously, without dressing—a problem solved when one of the managers immediately followed it to our table to explain that it was a room-service request. The situation was quickly righted.

Burgers, a Reuben and a fish fry are in the $8 range, with fries or rings included; the smoked turkey wrap ($7.50) was as good as you can expect without getting into fancy or unexpected ingredients. Salad greens are fresh and seasonings are applied with more vigor than I expect from a hotel restaurant, which is an excellent thing.

The main menu, a single page, features a baker’s-dozen entrées along with a trio of low-carb options. From the latter, the pan-seared salmon ($18) boasted a good flavor despite having been cooked longer than I prefer—but that’s not a preference most diners share, I know. Served atop a warm compote of eggplant and tomatoes, with a side of Caesar salad, it was a satisfying meal.

I watched one of the beef tenderloin-crab cake Napoleons go by; it’s a $29 dish that presents a Béarnaise-capped mountain of meat and seafood layers and it looked damn good. Based on the comments I overheard, the flavor lived up to the looks.

Also in the beef realm, the flatiron steak, a cut recently developed at the University of Nebraska, becomes a tender partner to a tangy chimichurri sauce ($19). I chose mashed potatoes as a side, which also was enhanced by the sauce. A side of squash-rich sautéed vegetables demonstrated the kitchen’s care with what’s served: It was crisp and flavorful without big butter enhancement.

Both the mushroom appetizer ($6) and the pork loin entrée ($17) are stuffed with sausage—sweet sausage in the former, andouille in the pork—and the enhancement is compelling. By the time my table’s pork order arrived we’d reached the end of the loin, but within the odd shape was a broader-than-expected flavor.

The $17 combo of gnocchi and crab meat was tied together with a cream sauce that seemed to go on forever, coupled with the sweetness of fontina cheese.

By coffee-and-dessert time, the restaurant was in prepare-for-breakfast mode, rearranging table settings, and it wasn’t as easy to catch a server’s eye. And the tables are spritzed with my old bane, the spray bottle of chemical solvent, something that never should appear in a dining room while customers are present.

A buffet is offered for lunch in addition to the regular lunch menu; Sundays there’s a $16 brunch buffet. And the best deal of all is the $20 Saturday prime rib buffet (kids 6 to 10 are $7), for which reservations are helpful. Travelers may think of this merely as the restaurant that comes with their hotel, but in the larger context of a chain-joint-infested boulevard, it’s something of an oasis.

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