Canali’s Restaurant – Schenectady, NY

On my way out to Wagon Train BBQ, I’ve passed Canali’s (126 Mariaville Rd. Schenectady, NY) a number of times. It comes highly recommended by a couple of people mainly for the portion sizes, so, one Sunday night when that chicken parm craving was strong, we stopped in.

We arrived at 5:30, and the restaurant was just about packed. There were a lot of families and older couples; within my view, I didn’t see many diners in our demographic. According to the website, they’ve been around for over 65 years. While the interior of the restaurant is clean and tidy, the decor definitely felt dated. The menu added to the dated feeling, as it was filled with your standard, tried-and-true Italian-American fare. I’m not gonna knock these guys for that because they’re clearly still having success from what they do, and I was there mainly to eat chicken parm.

While we looked over the menu, they gave us some bread to snack on.

Even though we figured they would be the standard issue mozzarella sticks served with jarred melba (raspberry) sauce, we ordered them as an appetizer anyway ($7).

Our meals each came with a salad, and our server talked me into having mine with their homemade Italian vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was simply a mixture of white and red wine vinegars, oil, and oregano. This is an example of the mark Olive Garden tries to hit with their dressing.

The chicken parm ($16), not surprisingly, was a huge portion that was loaded with sauce. Their sauce is fairly average, and the breading and fry on the chicken was not outstanding. The portion, as expected, was definitely generous for the price.

I chose to have spaghetti on the side, and it was really overcooked. I really couldn’t take more than a couple of bites.

While my experience at Italian American Capital Region restaurants that measure at par are limited, I’m going to assume this one meets the par.