Testo's Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Cohoes

Arriving at Testo's on a Thursday night comes with finding parking, be prepared to drive around the block trying to locate an open space as the restaurant is nestled in a residential district and its own parking is quite limited.

Once you have found your spot and you're inside, you might need a wait a bit before a table is ready. On my particular visit my party of four waited up to 10 minutes before being seated, not a bad wait in any sense of the word but it can become crowded as the 'waiting area' is rather sparse.

Now comes the fun part, the food and the service. Both you should find very acceptable if not above average, as the food and the service were both warm and fulfilling.

Our waitress checked on us multiples times while were were waiting for our main orders, and she was nice enough to inform us that there are no free refills. (This is a bit disappointing, but not a game changer.) She was friendly, professional, and she handled quite a few tables with ease. She also answered any questions we had, and came back with progress reports on how our meals were being prepared.

As for the food, well, I had ordered the Veal Parmesan with a side of Capellini in Alfredo sauce. A classic Italian staple, something I use to grade many Italian restaurants. The Veal was excellently pan fried and just the right diameter for ease of cutting, the marinara sauce pared perfectly however there was just a tad too much melted mozzarella. The Capellini in Alfredo, because they did not have fettuccine noodles, was also quite good. While I had mostly filled up on the Veal, the Capellini wrapped around my fork with ease and the Alfredo sauce clung to the noodles with a thick viscosity only seen when the sauce is prepared correctly.

I was a tad bit disappointed that there were so few desserts, but what they did have was Italian in nature so take the good with the bad. While they did have staples like Tiramisu, Spumoni, and Cannolis, I would have liked to have seen some more adventurous Italian desserts like Struffoli, Cassata, and Affogato for those looking for that Coffee based dessert.

Overall Testo's is a great choice for a small family outing on the look for an Italian restaurant, the atmosphere is respectable but not arrogant, so bring your kids if you want but you might want to leave the babies with...

I have been wanting to come here for awhile, and finally made it last night. Overall a good experience, but nothing I would go out of my way for. I ordered a glass of riesling (no Savignon Blanc by the glass, which was odd imo), and after the waitress brought it over, another waitress took my glass to fill it more (my kind of service!). The bread was not the kind of crusty Italian bread you would expect; it was the size of sandwich bread, with no chew to it. Plus we only got FOUR pieces of it. We saw the other waitress give out a nice full basket to her tables. I do not not typically eat bread, but I look forward to it at these places, especially to dip in my salad dressing. The salads were also meh. No veggies, just lettuce and onions. The vinegar peppers were a nice touch, but they're from a jar!

Onto the mains: I ordered shrimp scampi. It was more like linguine with shrimps and broccoli; very disappointing (and DROWNING in oil). No garlic or wine to be found anywhere, plus I'm pretty sure it was frozen broccoli. My mom makes the best, and this did not even come close. My friend ordered the combo, which I thought was cool & something different. You get chicken parm, eggplant parm, a meatball & lasagna. He liked it, said the sauce was really good. It did not come with pasta though, so he paid $4 for a side of buttered pasta which is ridiculous imo.

Anywho, I was glad to try it, but I will go to Verdile's next time. Their menu offers some different things, which I like. I will say though the service was very nice, and I enjoyed the Frank Sinatra playing....

For a neighborhood family restaurant, the server running the dining room has no apparent concern for earning new business. We arrived at 8:25 with the advertised closing time of nine o'clock to the lone server yelling at us that the dining room was CLOSED, "all you can do is grab stuff to go". A large table hurriedly grabbing their coats gave him a nastly look as one lady told us "they really rush you right out of here". I had left work early, and for a Thursday night with no back up plan it was crappy to drive twenty minutes into North Troy to be turned away. Now, if the kitchen was still able to cook, and all we were planning on was a quick dinner for two, they must not need to money. For a classic restaurant this tops the list on the worst service I have witnessed. I gained my entry in the food service industry at the age of 10, working in a much larger Italian restaurant at the age of 14, and never leaving the industry. I currently run a restaurant. I'd never allow a staff member, family, owner, or other to treat a single opportunity for business in this manner. I'm not fussy. Since they apparently don't need my money, I...