Photo: Alicia Solsman

Picking Up Speed
By B.A. Nilsson

Fortune’s
Saratoga Gaming and Raceway, Crescent Avenue, Saratoga Springs, 581-5790. Serving dinner Tue-Fri 5-10, Sat 3-5. AE, MC, V.

Cuisine: meat ’n’ potatoes

Entrée price range: $16 (roast turkey) to $30 (twin filet mignons with crabmeat)

Ambiance: They’re off!

With a three-quarter-million dollar facelift, new chef, and revamped menu, the fine-dining option at Saratoga Gaming and Raceway improved dramatically, as was displayed earlier this year in a press luncheon in which the food and facility were introduced.

Let the crowds in, however, and you’re fighting a different battle. We visited twice in recent days, contrasting a busy Saturday with a slower weeknight, and witnessed the challenge the restaurant still has set for itself. But the difference between what’s there now and what we experienced a year ago is immeasurable.

Back then the place looked unattractive and the food was worse, with a buffet that seemed more apology than appetizing. Positioned as the best of the several restaurants within the gaming facility, it didn’t raise the bar very high.

But there was and is a built-in dilemma: Patrons at the raceway don’t seem to be looking for rarefied gourmet fare. I have no studies to support this theory, which springs only from personal observations made during my few visits. And because I’m not a gambler, I approach this restaurant with a narrower focus. Which is why I was frequently startled by enthusiastic yells from the crowd as the higher-stakes races finished.

Chef Kevin Philbin maintains a menu developed to meld fine dining with a meat-and-potatoes mindset, and it works out to be a two-part deal. Order off the menu, or pay a single price and cruise repeatedly through the buffet. Wherever you’re seated in the large, multi-tiered room, you’ll have a picture-window view of the track outside. The view is reinforced by flat-screen monitors at the tables. And you can place your bets with passing attendants. So, once you’re seated, you won’t have to rise until after you pay the check.

The fat guy in me loves the buffet concept, where endless food replaces that much-desired endless love. So I’m quick to succumb. And so I did during one of the visits, on that busy Saturday when we were awarded a table only because we promised to come early enough to miss the tsunami of the expected crowd.

And what a crowd! The service staff is energetic, generous to a fault—but quickly overtaxed when the place fills up. It’s the fault, as I’m used to ranting, of
station-based service, limiting a particular server’s responsibility to only a few tables. Not that you won’t be helped by any server you snag, but you may not be observed as attentively as needed.

Another factor is that this is a more demanding clientele than I typically encounter, but that’s a subject for a shrewder sociologist than I.

Provided the buffet browsers are all headed in the same direction and not taking time to stare quizzically at each item, you can quickly fill your plate with appetizers, salad, fruit, and entrée items. Oysters are not unheard of; shrimp abounds. Across the aisle, large heated bins with swing-open covers revealed an array of mixed vegetables, still on the crisp side; half-ears of corn; tender beef ribs; stuffed pork chops; mashed potatoes; broiled salmon, a little the worse for wear; and some manner of not-too-moist chicken. (The chicken improved tremendously during our second visit.) And there was a carving station for prime rib.

The items change from day to day, but the variety remains consistent. Small portions of a variety of dessert items also are included. At $18, the prime-rib buffet (a Saturday constant) is an extremely reasonable bargain; the kid’s price is $10.

Not surprisingly, the menu item labeled Fortune’s Favorite is a $30 serving of two slices of grilled filet mignon, served on portobello mushroom caps, and garnished with crabmeat and a just-right amount of Bearnaise sauce
(tarragon-scented Hollandaise). No complaints about its design and presentation, except to warn you that it’s a lot of meat and, what with salad and bread that also arrives, I wouldn’t flirt with appetizers.

If you do, however, there are some novel ones. The grilled calamari ($8), for instance, will prove if you truly enjoy the stuff. No breading, no grease. Just the chewy meat of the beast itself, with a tomato-basil vinaigrette for accompaniment. “I have to warn the customers,” our server said, explaining why she tried to dissuade me from ordering it. “They always think it’s going to be fried.”

A $9 tomato-and-mozzarella salad warranted the price with its fresh, ripe ingredients and generous use of pesto and vinegar. And there’s a Maryland crab cake ($11; $24 as an entrée) that really is all about crabmeat in a loose concoction served over baby spinach, dabbed with some pepper-rich mayonnaise.

For light dining, a three-cheeseburger is $11; a cobb salad wrap is $10.

A meat-free option is the vegetable Napoleon ($17), but, despite the presence of grilled zucchini, eggplant, and peppers layered with tomatoes and portobellos, it had a persistent blandness of flavor.

Grilled salmon ($20) and baked Alaskan cod with kalamata olives ($17) are other seafood options, and there’s a chicken breast stuffed with chèvre ($18). Die-hard traditionalists might enjoy the roast turkey ($16), which we were curious to try after hearing a neighboring customer complain about the sauce. It was, it turned out, a traditional turkey gravy, but he wanted something brown and nothing else would suit him—not even the array of other sauces the server schlepped over.

I don’t know if a facility like this can and should attempt something exceptionally fancy, but they’ve certainly established a high-end middle-of-the-road restaurant, if that makes sense, and it’s worth a visit even if you’re not planning to play the resident horses or machines.

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