Among the reasons to go to Cohoes to visit Fallside Brewing, the new name for what previously was Bye-i Brewing, is that chicken wings are 50 cents apiece on Sunday. These days, five bucks for 10 wings seems like a steal, given that it’s common for wings to cost $16 for 10 ($1.60 each) or even $22 for 12 ($1.83 per wing). Try Fallside’s wings with mango-habanero sauce, exhibiting abundant fruit and a building heat, or with Jamaican jerk sauce, which produced a sweaty brow on one of my companions after about two wings.
For me, though, the real reason to check out Fallside’s warehouse-style brewpub on Saratoga Street — besides the beer, of course — is the creative work being done on weekly specials by its new executive chef, Stephen Barrett, previously of Lost & Found Bar & Kitchen in Albany. Last week’s included a poblano pepper with a masa tempura batter and a stuffing of risotto and braised chicken, as well as wowing Black Forest sausage with the most unusual (and best) German potato salad I’ve ever had, garnished with lacy gaufrette potatoes and an addictive forager sauce of pickled currant, thyme, onion and Fallside lager.
The latter dish was so shockingly good that it drew exclamations from all of us at the table — for the bold smokiness of the housemade sausage (that would be from ground Nueske’s bacon), for the potatoes so good that a companion took them home despite a premeal insistence that he doesn’t like German potato salad, and for that balanced, delectable sauce. The plate, at $19, easily feeds two if you split 10 wings beforehand. The potato salad nods to the traditional preparation because it’s warm and includes bacon and vinegar. But rather than chunks of new potatoes, Barrett uses fingerlings that are blanched, smashed and fried. He finely dices then sautés carrots with shallot, garlic and thyme, and seasons with salt, pepper, bacon fat and vinegar before chilling the mixture and reheating to order with potatoes, more thyme and whole-grain and Dijon mustards. My dining companion reports that the leftover potatoes turned into lovely next-morning latkes.
Other recent specials have included falafel with tzatziki, tabbouleh, toum and harissa tahini; spring rolls with locally foraged mushrooms and ramps; and spiced, charred carrots with labneh, pomegranate molasses, dukkah, fresh mint, lemon zest and hot honey…