Sergi's

Officially, it is Sergi's Italian Restaurant Pizzeria & Banquet Hall. It has been around in the exact same location at 10 Market Street since my college days in the mid 80's (originally established in the 60's I believe), in historic downtown Potsdam, NY. I swear I had taken a picture of its storefront the previous fall with my camera that is now lost, but this one of my kids in our yard with the paper placemat map of Italy from our visit will have to do (taken with new cheapo camera). That's Julie, of the Julie/Mom Project, on the left. I remembered I had my new camera with me after we already walked home. It is fun to look at the picture now, in the bleak of winter and remember fondly the fall weather that I love so much.

We actually went here for the Project on October 16, 2011 and I have just been too darn lazy to write it up yet. This is a "no rules" blog and that's just the way it goes. We originally started it to do restaurants listed in the North Country This Week's Spring Restaurant Guide, but since they just published a similar Fall Restaurant Guide, we'll just slide on into that. I think the Fall Guide has added some new places, but Sergi's is in both. The nearby town of Canton, NY also has a Sergi's.

I decided to take the girls out before I had to leave for out-of-state work and Sergi's was their choice. They have eaten here before and knew exactly what they wanted. I was feeling a bit under the weather and not really so hungry. I love their pizza, but haven't really tried much else. There are two sides to the restaurant... the banquet hall side, with some fancy chandeliers and nicer furniture (as I recall) and the diner style side that we sat in, with informal booth seating in two rows down the length of the skinny room to the kitchen. Beer and wine is served, though I was having none of that this day.

The girls both ordered the stuffed shells which comes with bread and a house salad, MJ's with no dressing and Julie's with ranch. MJ got her usual root beer and Julie a Diet Coke, not that the "diet" part of her beverage was going to save her much in the calorie total with this meal! I ordered water to drink and appetizers, bruschetta and the sampler platter which consisted of breaded, fried zucchini, mushrooms, mozzarella sticks and buffalo style chicken wings. All these appetizers were pretty standard and there truly is not much one can do to improve on such basics. But the bruschetta was average and has potential for improvement. It was just a mix of olive-oil seasoned chopped tomatoes, red onion, grated parmesan and garlic on toasted bread. The dried basil sprinkling was not very prominent, but the bread itself is home-made and the strongest part of this item. Julie enjoyed it, but was able to discern the considerable difference in quality with the bruschetta she made herself at home.

MJ picked through her salad, removing the tomato wedges and the cucumber. She doesn't like fresh tomatoes, but she loves cucumber. She said that the cucumber "tasted funny" the last time she ate them here. I ate them and they tasted fine. She ate the large, thin slices of carrot as well as the black olives and the bulk of the salad which was chopped head lettuce. She picked out the sparse gourmet greens including spinach and red lettuce, which I thought she liked. Strange kid. Julie picked out her tomato wedges and I ate them. She likes tomato, but I think is spoiled by the home garden ones we had from recent harvest.

Julie shared the appetizers with me and MJ ate one mozzarella stick, the only item palatable to her. Julie still needs to learn how to eat chicken wings like a New Yorker. She leaves too much meat on them. Usually they serve one wing each of the various spicy grades in the sampler platter, but I got them all mild so Julie wouldn't get surprised. She'll work up in the heat scale as she grows, I'm sure. She already does pretty well with spiciness. Julie loves mushrooms and had several of these breaded ones, but didn't venture into the fried zucchini. I bat clean-up and finished her salad as well as all remains of the appetizers. I wasn't very hungry to begin with and I was stuffed now.

Speaking of stuffed, the stuffed shells looked delicious in their boat dish filled with sauce and cheese baked to bubbling and slightly browned. The portion was quite large of such rich food and although MJ claimed to have eaten one of the stuffed shells, I couldn't tell that she had eaten any. Perhaps just not in a growth spirt at this time, since it wasn't like she had filled herself on appetizers. Julie, who had eaten appetizers, but purposely limited them to keep room for her main course, ate noticably more of the shells. Of course, she is stuck in growth spirt mode! All good. They leftover quite nicely and there was no waste.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Sergi's pizza rolls. Though this is not intended to be a food critic blog, I can't help myself. Sergi's makes their pizza rolls in the deep frier. They have a huge amount of fried dough at their conically tapered ends which results in a very tiny pocket for the filling. The last one I had (brought to me take-out by my husband) was very skimpy on the pepperoni and sauce filling and struck me like a fried dough sledgehammer. I love fried dough, I just wish they could get less of that and more filling. Love you, though, Sergi's! You make really good pizza and your business space is comfortable and friendly.

Mom's Schoolhouse Diner

Happy birthday to me! Well, back in May it was my birthday and that is when I visited "Mom's" with my kids for the Julie/Mom Project because I had never been there and, well, it was my birthday! We were in transition from one house to another and temporarily staying in West Potsdam, where Mom's Schoolhouse Diner is located at a rural crossroads next to the volunteer fire fighter's station... "The Minutemen".

It was a Saturday and "Mom" has a constant ad in the North Country This Week that says "sing-along-with-Mom" on Saturdays. I figured we could catch some old time style fun and might get a favorite north country treat I always loved and had been telling my kids about... french fries with gravy.

As we walked into the the quaint little diner, I spied the old piano in the corner... just what I had imagined "sing-along-with-Mom" would involve. It's a pretty small place with 1950's theme decor, old 45 records, old pictures, old advertisements and some Norman Rockwells.

Unfortunately we were immediately informed that "Mom's" daughter was getting married tomorrow and she was too busy with preparations to play the piano tonight. Also, the usual Saturday special of Shepherd's Pie was not available due to wedding prep. The soup du jour was sold out (we went in late to catch the hour of sing-along). Also, the frier was broken, so no french fries! On the bright side, I told them it was my birthday and I got 15% off my dinner, or a free small Sundae. I went with the 15% as I am not a big dessert fan.

Julie ordered the basil and lemon chicken breast platter with her two sides being applesauce and cottage cheese (because no soup). I got the breaded cod fillet with red potato salad and cole slaw. Actually, it may have been a sole fillet... its hard to tell and fish is routinely served under false species ID. Cod is fairly rare these days thanks to the overfishing in the Atlantic, but the reason I speculate isn't because I'm a great expert, its because the waitress wasn't sure what it was. Well, it was fish and I liked it, so that's all that matters. MJ enjoyed a healthy meal of a vanilla frappe (thick local style milkshake) and plain cheeseburger. "Plain Maryjane" is what she is with her cheeseburgers... nothing else but pickle is allowed. Apparently sesame seed buns are now acceptable, though that was an annoying issue for years. Once again, that's why this is the Julie/Mom Project and not the MJ/Mom Project.

The main portions are not huge, sort of bare looking on the large oval platter with the side orders in little, fancy, clear plastic cups. Simple fare as is to be expected from such a remote little corner place. Julie ordered a chocolate frappe for dessert while I finished the last 1/8 of MJ's burger.

I noted the place seemed to serve as a tiny grocery store, as well. There is a four door cooler with milk, OJ and whipped cream (which the diner probably uses) and a shelf area with a few cans of SPAM, Campbell's soup, chips, ketchup, bread, loose candy jars, and stuffed animals(?).

We need to come back when Mom is singin'.

Thai Cuisine Restaurant

We are sort of cheating on this one. Though, since we have no rules and no goals to this blog, we can't really cheat. What I mean is that we had actually visited this place the week before we came up with the idea to do this blog, but it was still fresh in our minds. It was a special trip for me (Mom) and my two girls (Julie and her older sister), since I and my husband had been here several times, but the girls had never been.

Lunch is the best deal, so I promised the kids, on a day off from school during spring break, that I would take them. For lunch, the price is lower than dinner entrees as is typical because of a smaller portion, but comes with a small bowl of soup and a fried eggroll. At 29 Maple Street in Potsdam, NY, this is a pleasant stroll through downtown and across the bridges of the Racquette River.

My oldest girl is a finicky eater extraordinaire. She makes Morris the cat seem like an uncritical gourmand. It is with great trepidation that we dare to take her anywhere to eat that is not the most tried and true, bland fare imaginable. Even then, she can decide that there is something wrong with her order. And that is why there could never be an "MJ/Mom Project" in the spirit of this current blog.

MJ ordered the Vegetable Lo Mein, a fairly safe bet since that is what she usually gets from Chinese restaurants (any sort of meat creates a 90% chance of observing her face scrinch up to look like a chicken's behind, as my husband puts it). Julie has a great variety of tastes and even a fair edge to the degree of spiciness she can handle, but I was still looking over the menu trying to figure a good choice for her. The waitress/manager suggested a basic shrimp and broccoli stir fry. Upon hearing that, I asked if it could be spiced up (yes) and ordered it myself while Julie chose the "Crazy Noodle" with beef off the menu, no doubt due to the funny name. Crazy Noodle is a spicy dish and we ordered it mild for Julie, while I asked for as spicy as possible with my own shrimp and broccoli. MJ, needless to say, thinks salt is "hot" and cannot even have the slightest amount of anything as basic as black pepper added to her food.

Our soup came out and surprisingly, Morris, I mean, MJ actually liked it! Maybe she is more like Mikey from the Life cereal commercials... doesn't like anything so we'll test it out on her... she likes it! Anyway, it is a typical southeast asian style clear soup with a few shreds of blanched cabbage and carrot in it, seasoned lightly and with rice vinegar for a subtle tanginess. The vegetable eggroll came with the entree, a small sample with a thin crispy fried wrapper. MJ questioned me later why we did not order the spring rolls, which I had praised before. These are lovely, unfried, larger rolls of cabbage, sprout, carrot, cilantro and other miscellaneous goodness and served with a tangy dipping sauce. I explained that I wasn't going to order something that she would certainly not eat no matter what her sincere earnestness in wanting to try. I suspect Julie might like them, but this was a small experiment for them, not a grand one. Frugality is a lead motto in eating out these days, so maybe some other time.

All of us had at least a few carrot slices in our dishes that were fancifully criss-cut. Mine was excellent served on rice and as spicy hot as I like it without making it inedible. MJ ate all her food, save a very few larger pieces of delicious green bell pepper and onion. Julie's fried noodle dish was slightly spicy and very tasty to her. She gave MJ half of her eggroll. I asked MJ if she wanted mine, but she declined. After we left she declared she was still hungry. She must be going through a growth spirt.