There is nothing delicate about B-rad's Bistro and Catering. The website sets the tone, booming "Bigger, better, B-rad's Bistro!" and promoting its hangover brunch with a gravelly voiceover that either sighs or burps. The menu is almost as long as my arm. Words like chunk, kick and zest exude the sort of boo-ya associated with carousing lads and Emeril's "Bam!"

Chef-owner Bradford Stevens is no wallflower: He pimped his name to "B-rad" for the logo before adding a steaming spoon and a letter B bursting in hot-rod-inspired flame. Vroom.

It's fitting that Stevens, an Albany native who cut his teeth in local and family restaurants, sees himself as B-rad on the block, a true local boy done good. In immaculate, pitch-black chef's duds and sculpted beard, he could be Troy's answer to Guy Fieri jostling pans over high heat in the kitchen or popping up behind the bar to check on the dining room. You get the impression his fingers are in everything, from the frill-free dining room styled in masculine black, white and ruby red to the mass of promotional magnets clinging to industrial kitchen appliances. Then again, if that's true, the selection of Oktoberfests, pumpkin and cherry ales, and Angry Orchard cider on tap stands out as a curiously flavored crop that leaves many traditional beer drinkers spiced out.

B-rad's location, on Fifth Avenue in Troy, steps from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's downtown dorms and a quick downhill walk from campus, makes it a likely mecca for the student masses. Instead, the smart black-and-white facade, striped awnings and sidewalk tables invitingly topped with black tablecloths and cranberry votive candles give it a charming Euro-bistro vibe. I love that, despite the trail of students grabbing takeout on the kitchen side, the dinner clientele is a mix of locals talking politics at the bar, moon-eyed college kids on dates and old ladies wrapping lipsticked mouths around overstuffed wraps and big glasses of wine.

B-rad's is bistro in design and bachelor in flavor. Stevens, a graduate of Johnson and Wales, is turning out big food at a small price point, with towering sandwiches and a standalone category of "deep fried goodies" — batter on anything from green beans to Oreos. You know those food shows that crisscross America in search of extreme meals? B-rad's menu is a greatest-hits compilation.

It's best to ease into ordering. The "fried goodies" are optional sides with everything else. Fat onion rings ($3 small/$5 large) are golden fairground staples; deep-fried green beans ($3/$5) keep their natural color and an impressively crispy snap. Wings, in flavors from popular barbecue and honey-mustard to an unexpected peanut butter and jelly, come in sizes from a personal half dozen ($5) to five dozen ($37), hopefully to share. Ours were extra crispy as asked, and spicy without sinus-clearing heat.

The Southern Comfort sandwich ($10) is an exercise in excess, layered with hearty homemade meatloaf, sharp macaroni and cheese, crispy bacon and fried onions. Standing a half-foot tall, the monstrosity is built on crunchy ciabatta bread that performs a somewhat perfunctory role. Our waitress admitted she likes to watch how people eat it. Seizing it with two hands and burying your face in the middle seems a reasonable approach, if you don't mind the stares. With cheesy cavatappi falling from the wreckage, it's a fantastic, messy, sinful sandwich best not disclosed to your doctor or ordered on a date.

B-rad's doesn't let a little copyright get in the way of its double-patty "big boy" burger ($16) or "big mac" ($14) upgraded with two beef filet mignons. It's unclear what makes the Brazilian burger ($12) Brazilian, unless the enormous steak knife stuck through its rare heart is actually a message from bandits. Eating it is hairy enough. The casing of the mild chorizo sausage laid in planks on top was so chewy I felt like a terrier shaking my head to sever each slice, and the required tight grasp sent yolk from the sunny-side-up egg cascading over both hands. It's big, salty, terrifyingly good and needs a careful plan of attack.

B-rad's doesn't limit itself to coronaries on a plate. Heart-healthy wraps and salads are offered up "scantily clad" on a "lush bed." Chef "B-rad's" salad ($9) — topped with roast turkey, roast beef, baked ham, bacon, cheese and a fried egg — blurs the health-conscious line and seems likely to fight waistline atrophy. Sadly, Thai chicken salad wraps ($8), cocooned in lovely young bibb lettuce, fizzed dangerously on the tongue and had to be sent back. Even if it hadn't gone off, such texturized chicken paste would have been hard to handle. And crunchy noodles do not a Thai dish make.

If you find room to entertain dessert nachos for two ($10) or deep-fried Oreos tarted up with powdered sugar and raspberry sauce ($8), more power to you. We opted for homemade pumpkin whoopie pie ($7), which, to hear our server tell it, was a one-way ticket to 50 virgins and celestial rapture. My best guess is that it was indeed awesome when it was made. Cold from the fridge, our whoopie was sticky-backed, the sweet pumpkin cream in crumbles.

B-rad's Bistro and Catering covers all the bases: There are menus for breakfast, lunch, takeout and catering, all ordered at the counter. Dinner with waitress table service has just expanded to six nights a week. The bar's midweek half-off beer specials, Frisky Fridays and Sangria Saturdays make any night a cheap one to drink. That weekend hangover brunch, unapologetically aimed at mopping up the excesses of the night before, is loaded with button-busters from chocolate- and peanut butter-stuffed French toast ("stuffies") to green eggs and ham. Bradford Stevens turns out big food from his man-cave bistro. You might as well go and get stuffed.

Dinner for two — including two appetizers, two entrée sandwiches, a side, one dessert, three beverages (bottled beers, half-off) — came to $58.32 with tax and tip.

Follow Susie Davidson Powell on Twitter, @SusieDP.