Longfellows, Rivers, Toro tops in Mac-n-Cheese Bowl voting

COLONIE — Longfellows Restaurant of Saratoga Springs, Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady and Toro Cantina of Colonie took multiple awards in voting for the 11th annual timesunion.com/Table Hopping Mac-n-Cheese Bowl, a benefit for the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.

Held in a drive-through format, with participants picking up samples of macaroni and cheese from 10 Capital Region restaurants and caterers on Saturday from the food bank's Latham headquarters, the event raised a projected $25,000, according to the organization's executive director, Mark Quandt. In recent years, the Mac-n-Cheese Bowl attracted upward of 2,000 people over three hours to Siena College's MAC Center and brought in $50,000 to $60,000 for the food bank.

"It's less than in the past but obviously more than if we hadn't been able to have it at all," Quandt said.

The Mac-n-Cheese Bowl sold out all 500 of its available sample packs two weeks in advance, with about 150 participants opting to upgrade to a ticket with a four-pack of New York state craft beers.

Mac-n-cheese samples included traditional styles with only pasta and cheese as well as more complex variations with Buffalo chicken, maple and bacon, mushrooms, General Tso's sauce, Reuben sandwich components, braised short ribs, and macaroni and cheese inside a meatball.

Mac-n-cheese was supplied by Brown’s Brewing, Feed Albany, Katie O’Byrne's Irish Pub, Livin’ The Dream Food Cart, Longfellows Restaurant, Mazzone Catering, Rivers Casino & Resort, Saati Deli & Catering, Toro Cantina and Unidine, with  beer from Jack’s Abby Brewing, Rare Form Brewing, Swiftwater Brewing and Thin Man Brewery. This year’s principal sponsors were Hannaford, the Times Union, Old Brick Furniture + Mattress Co. and CAP COM Federal Credit Union. Cabot Cheese and Barilla supplied restaurants with cheese and pasta, respectively.

More than 180 participants voted online between midday Saturday, after picking up their samples, and noon Monday. Their top favorite was maple-bacon mac-n-cheese from Longfellows. Voters gave second place to Toro for a variation with the restaurant's spicy salsa negra, and third to Saati of Latham, which entered a traditional mac-n-cheese.

The judging panel was made up of representatives of the Times Union, sponsors CBS6 Albany and WGY and Chloe Sink, the winning kid cook from the 2019 Mac-n-Cheese Bowl, who was unable to defend her title for the past two years because of pandemic-related restrictions.

The judges awarded first place to Rivers Casino for a version with braised short ribs and caramelized onion. Second place went to Toro, third to Longfellows.

The food bank was unable to hold any of its major annual fundraisers, among them dinners, auctions and a golf tournament, in traditional formats in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. Like the Mac-n-Cheese Bowl, the food bank's fall September gala involved participants picking up meals provided by area restaurants, and it too sold out. Other fundraisers last year were canceled entirely.

Although demand for the food bank's services was up by almost 40 percent from the start of the pandemic through the end of February, Quandt said, expanded financial support from patrons and sponsors, as well as increased food donations from federal and state sources, allowed the organization to help meet increased needs of the food insecure across a 23-county region. The food bank serves nearly 1,000 agencies, feeding 350,000 people per month, according to Quandt, who said it provided 55 million pounds of food in 2020.

Quandt will retire in the fall after 38 years with the agency, meaning the 11th annual Mac-n-Cheese Bowl was the final under his leadership.

"But it won't be my last one eating the mac-n-cheese," he said. "My family and I love it. We'll definitely be back just to enjoy it next year."