The area's first LongHorn Steakhouse is surprisingly comfortable, and some of the food has more redeeming qualities than I'd expected. The 39-year-old, 500-location chain and Olive Garden sibling has finally arrived in the Capital Region, landing in the dining playground of Wolf Road in Colonie, of course. You know the building is new, but — at least in my vague recollection of chain eateries — it has a softer mood than your usual shiny corporate concept thanks to muted carpets, Aztec upholstery and a bunch of ranch-style collectibles like saddles, longhorn skulls and antler chandeliers. It all comes together under beamed ceilings and croony country-western tunes by the likes of Randy Travis, Jon Wolfe, Justin Townes Earle. The names may mean nothing to me, but they deliver familiar tales of boot dust and achy-breaky hearts.
Dinner is going to be epic, the steaks legendary. We know because it's written on the menu. There are Epic Beginnings for $5.99 that embrace fried pickles and Jack and Coke, and epic pairings elsewhere, when the menu tells you whether to order Blue Moon beer or LongHorn Perfect Margarita with each plate. On an expansive menu, such hand-holding means the overwhelmed barely need to think. And right off the rip, we are being instructed: Download the LongHorn app! Join the e-club for a free appetizer! Use these hashtags when posting your pics!
Hello! Our server — who will later draw a heart around her name on a bill as long as a CVS receipt — hits the table either to recite the preamble to the Constitution at the speed of radio commercial legal jargon or in fact to welcome us to LongHorn, "where the meat and seafood is fresh, never frozen." She speaks so incomprehensibly fast that I laugh reflexively and tell her we have no idea what she said. She doesn't laugh, but she manages to...
