Ten things to love: #4 Afternoons at Mezzo, Albany, NY

There are some cities, like some women, where their beauty is out front, in your face, undeniable. It's the first thing you notice about them. Paris. San Francisco. Rome.

But there's another kind of beauty. The kind that waits to be discovered, just around a turn, when the sunlight falls a certain way and all the lines and curves dance in its glow. This kind of beauty holds a secret. It doesn't shout its name from the rooftops. But look again, push back the gates, poke around the corner, and there it is. Waiting. In a secret garden.

This is Albany. Not hidden, yet some how elusive. Its beauty is there, and then it's not.

Block to block, history, sorrow, strength. A tangle that is always shifting. But there are moments.

Peek behind a fence, through the cracks and the twisting light, and there are moments this city can take your breath away.

One of them is Mezzo.

Mezzo is my favorite lunch spot in the city.

If you don't know about it, it can catch you by surprise. The entrance is tucked off Hamilton Street in a patio garden that feels like an urban oasis.

Inside, you can choose what appeals to you from the deli salads and entrees and they will make you a plate with exactly the portions you want. This is heaven for people like me who always wish they could have a taste of everything on the menu. The prices per pound may seem daunting, but it doesn't work out that way on the plate. Recent lunches of squash ravioli and red cabbage, crab cake with roasted root vegetables and asparagus, and a health portion of meatloaf with sides of Israeli couscous and black bean salad all came to about $6 a piece. Even with coffee (which we will get to in a moment), I rarely spend more than $8 for lunch.

If there is one thing that defines Mezzo, it's the thoughtful attention to details. Seasoning that makes even a condiment queen like myself forget to reach for anything but my fork. Vegetables that are brilliant green and succulent. Tender meat. Kind service.

And the one seemingly simple detail that seems to elude many high-end kitchens: perfectly cooked beans. Mezzo's black beans are tender all the way through, but every one them still in form. This may seem like a small thing, but it is very hard to do. In the last few years, I've had poorly cooked beans at some of the finer restaurants in the city as well as at American Bounty, one of the restaurants run by the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.

And then, of course, there is the coffee.

Mezzo has some of the best coffee I've had outside of Italy and this included New York and Seattle.

Some where along the way, Americans decided that good coffee had an acid edge to it. Like a hipster in a cup. If you wanted smooth coffee you had to sacrifice depth and complexity and slink into Dunkin' Donuts or some such place. Now I'm not knocking the D, I would take Dunkin' over Starbucks any day of the week, but you shouldn't have to choose. At Mezzo you don't. There isn't a hint of acid in Mezzo's coffee. It is rich and deep and yet so creamy tasting that it is the only coffee I've ever considered drinking black.

For a little while more you can still enjoy Mezzo's bounty in the garden patio.

Yesterday when I was there, the tables were full of business people on lunch breaks and families, sometimes dog in tow, hanging out with their babies.

Oh, and don't forget the brownies.