It’s Binghamton’s third-ever Restaurant Week and a whopping 14 restaurants are participating this year. I bet you didn’t even know there were 14 restaurants in Binghamton. Below are reviews of a handful of the local eateries complied by the Release staff. So read on, eat up and enjoy!
Mad Moose
Mad Moose House of Barbecue truly delivers what you would expect.
As you descend the stairs of the basement restaurant, the aroma of a wood burning oven and fresh pine or cedar tickles your senses. The décor makes you feel like you are sitting in Gaston’s trophy room, with everything crafted of wood and moose heads adorning the walls.
For Restaurant Week, Mad Moose offers a choice of three appetizers, three entrées, four side dishes and two desserts. The restaurant offers a wide selection of wild game and you truly get your money’s worth. They have daring options for the adventurous and safer options for the not so brave at heart.
For those who enjoy a meal on the mild side, choose the mini-bison burger as an appetizer. Bigger than a slider but smaller than your average burger, this hunk of bison is cooked medium-well, prepared with a mesquite barbecue sauce and served on a sweet bun.
I’m told that the ostrich empanadas are extremely spicy, so if heat is what you like, take a chance and turn it up with these empanadas.
When it comes to the entrée, there really is no wrong choice. The smoked slab of ribs are served with a choice of three different sauces ranging from sweet to spicy, letting you customize the heat intensity if you so choose. The meat is fall-off-the-bone tender and simply melts in your mouth. The fireman’s BBQ chicken in the El Paso stir-fry is moist and delicious, but it’s the stir-fry itself that packs a punch because of the chili that’s added to it.
The side of smoked gouda mashed potatoes sounded promising, but as the least prominent point of the meal, whether you have it or not, you won’t really miss it.
After a hearty meat-centric meal fit for the likes of Fred Flintstone’s brontosaurus appetite, the meal concludes with a dainty serving of dessert, just enough to satisfy your sweet tooth.
You really can’t go wrong with the classic fried Oreos, a staple in carnival cuisine. Mad Moose serves its Oreos with a side of Bailey’s whipped cream. It also offers a rum raisin bread pudding, which is a little piece of vanilla and banana heaven swirled into a tiny delectable crock.
Remlik’s
Remlik’s restaurant in Downtown Binghamton is a good place for a nice, formal dinner. The restaurant is located inside the historic Kilmer Building on Lewis Street.
The building is elegantly designed and decorated, with high ceilings and pillars, which adds a luxurious feel to the dining experience. Inside the restaurant, the atmosphere is distinctly classic and continuously gives off a graceful aura, making it hard to remember you’re in Binghamton.
This restaurant is the perfect place for a small group of friends to meet up for a nice dinner or for a romantic dinner with your special someone. The lighting is dimmed and the candles on every table leave an intimate feeling. This feeling is slightly disturbed by the close proximity of all of the tables, however, with some spots not even having enough room for the waitress to get to both sides of the table.
For Restaurant Week, Remlik’s has selected some of its most delicious items and lowered their prices on the menu. The deal is a combination of a soup or salad, an entrée and a dessert all for $10 at lunch or $20 at dinner.
The chicken pot pie, which was one of the entrées, was rather bland and average, with less than the expected amount of chicken. Another entrée, “The John Candy” steak, although not on the Restaurant Week menu, was simply delicious.
The chocolate brownie dessert was also quite good, seeming more like fudge than like a typical brownie, and it was part of the Restaurant Week pricing. Another dessert that was included was the coconut-jasmine rice pudding, adding something different than the typical desserts found on a dinner menu.
Overall, Remlik’s is a good place to go to dinner when you’re in the mood to take a break from life and enjoy a nice meal.
Downtown Cabana
Downtown Cabana, located at 12 Court St. in the Boscov’s department store in Downtown Binghamton, is one of the newer additions to Binghamton’s Restaurant Week.
Walking in through the front doors of Boscov’s, the signs for Downtown Cabana direct you to the back of the building, to an open doorway with a whiteboard sign announcing the restaurant and its participation in Restaurant Week.
Advertised as offering American and Greek cuisine, the Cabana’s Restaurant Week menu hosted a bland variety of pasta, chicken and meat dishes, all somewhat uninspiring in description and all prepared with feta cheese.
I chose the French onion soup appetizer, the spinach pie lunch special and for dessert, a small piece of mediocre chocolate cake. As an enthusiast of spinach pie, it was not only the small portion set in the middle of an empty plate or the lack of culinary aesthetics which left me strongly disenchanted, but the chewy consistency and lack of flavor, spinach or otherwise.
There is nothing of great interest to note about the French onion soup appetizer — it was a small serving, over-salted but palatable and certainly made better in comparison to the spinach pie. Overall, the food left everything to be desired and left me with unusually fond thoughts of heading back to campus for a Sodexo meal.
Unevenly lit by overhead lights, light fixtures on the walls and the occasional hanging orb encased by pink beads, the single rectangular room with dark red walls, large mirrors and sporadically placed paintings did not lend itself well to a dining atmosphere. On top of that, I was sitting at one of only three occupied tables in the restaurant.
The speed and enthusiasm of service did nothing to make up for what the food was lacking.
Downtown Cabana felt more like an ill-run cafeteria than a restaurant, so in perusing the list of eateries participating in Binghamton’s Restaurant Week, I would recommend that you steer clear of this eatery.
River Bistro
Many students may think the phrase “upscale restaurant” and Binghamton don’t go together, but believe it or not, this restaurant does exist.
Located on 225 Water St., The River Bistro brings a degree of class and ambiance to Binghamton.
The River Bistro officially opened on April 1, so the restaurant is still building its prominence in town. However, it won’t be long before people are talking about the savory cuisine the restaurant has to offer.
The lunch menu includes pan-roasted Atlantic salmon and buttermilk mashed potatoes. The salmon is well-prepared, succulent and fresh, but the gravy is what really gives it flavor. The addition of the sweet mashed potatoes made for an appetizing entrée.
For a simpler, more traditional lunch, there is the grilled breast of chicken panini, which includes tender chicken, smoked cheddar cheese and portobello mushrooms.
According to chef and Food & Beverages Director Michael Navarro, the food is appealing to a large number of people.
“We have steaks, burgers, sandwiches, salmon. So across the border, it’s a very accessible menu,” Navarro said.
In addition to lunch, the restaurant also serves dinner. On Sundays, there is a buffet from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. There is a dessert menu as well, which includes a variety of gourmet sweets and treats. A tasty one in particular is the warm lava cake with Tahitian vanilla gelato.
The price of a plate ranges anywhere from $7 to $17, and the desserts range from $4 to $6.
The restaurant provides a calm setting, with dim lighting and soft, melodic music. This is the place to go if you want to have a special meal, whether it be for a party of five or a romantic dinner for two.
The River Bistro has modest sophistication, while ultimately focusing on the quality of the food.
“[Everything is] simple elegance, nothing too overwhelming,” Navarro said. “Just good, honest food. That’s what we’re striving for.”
Tranquil
My dining partner and I entered the warm romantic atmosphere of Tranquil Bar & Bistro and were seated at the bar immediately upon our arrival. The bartender handed us the Restaurant Week menu; its regular menu is on vacation for the week.
Diners are presented with four choices for each course, each one catering to fit the needs of most peoples’ dietary restrictions. For my first course, I ordered the heirloom tomato caprese. The second course was the soup du jour, a vegetarian cream of mushroom soup. For my third course, I chose the pan-seared dry scallops and waited until later to choose dessert.
There was a long stretch between the time we finished ordering and being served our first course. But after the initial wait, the service sped up.
The caprese salad was absolutely divine. The presentation was simple and elegant; a tower of tomato and mozzarella, dressed in a pistachio basil pesto and balsamic dressing. The tomatoes and mozzarella, which can often be bland on their own, were seasoned perfectly with salt and pepper. The balsamic vinegar was on the sweeter side; it was a much-needed contrast of flavor to the saltier pesto.
While some may be concerned that the vegetarian cream of mushroom would be too filling for a four-course meal, it was actually very light. The vegetable consommé must have been made with only a touch of heavy cream and butter because the flavor of dairy was so subtle. The soup was garnished with scallions, giving it a pop of color, and with every spoonful there was a bite of fresh mushrooms waiting to be scooped up. It was a nice palate cleanser between the first and third courses.
The pan-seared dry scallops served in sambuca beurre blanc with a potato torte on the side and a pan-fried vegetable nest on top certainly stole the show.
Though some may be disappointed with the portion size — there were only three scallops on the plate — the deliciousness makes up for it. The scallops were cooked to a T and only seasoned with salt and pepper, maintaining their rich, natural flavor. The sambuca beurre blanc provided a sweet and salty combination. Every bite was an explosion of chewy, soft, airy tenderness, like a marshmallow of the sea. The potato torte was similar to a potato kugel, but with loads of butter, and the pan-fried vegetable nest fulfilled my craving for crunch.
For dessert, the toffee-flavored British-style sticky pudding is a must, even though it was an extra $2. It was the sweetest ending to a delicious meal.
Grande’s Bella Cucina
Located at 1171 Vestal Ave., Grande’s is a cozy Italian eatery that is just a short drive from campus and well worth a visit.
While comparable to Olive Garden in terms of the family atmosphere and mouth-watering Italian cuisine, Grande’s boasts a cozier ambiance and more personal feel than its restaurant chain counterparts.
The interior is absolutely gorgeous. A beautiful mural of the Italian countryside covers one wall, and the ceiling is painted to resemble the night sky, with tiny lights sparkling throughout to give the effect of stars. The tables are located far from the noise of the bar, allowing for more comfort and easier conversation.¶
Service was prompt and the serving people were very friendly and helpful. The menu, filled with a wide variety of pasta specialties, homemade Gnocchi dishes and meat specialties, could make decision-making difficult.
When it comes to dessert, the homemade tiramisu is particularly delicious, as is the warm and melted big chocolate cake.
Vincent Altadonna, the restaurant’s manager, recommended the Timballo di Melanzane and the Lasagna Bolognese.
He added, however, that what makes Grande’s so special isn’t just the delicious food.
“What really makes a restaurant unique is the people,” Altadonna said. “I’ve had some of the same customers for the last 40 years. That’s what makes this business so amazing.”
If you’re looking for some truly mouth-watering Italian cuisine in a family-oriented restaurant, then you should definitely pay Grande’s a visit.
CyberCafé West
CyberCafé West is a cherished food and live music spot in Downtown Binghamton. An oasis of sorts from the gloomy winter malaise, Cyber West provides a homey and inviting atmosphere for customers to relax. Its “hip” décor and spot-on music selection make it the perfect place to grab a bite to eat with friends.
In its first-ever participation in Restaurant Week, its lunch menu takes specific dishes right off its regular menu, providing you with an appetizer, entrée and dessert all for $10.
The appetizer list is extensive, ranging from a variety of soups to chili and salad. I got the vegetarian chili, which came with sour cream and cheese that perfectly complemented the slight spiciness of the dish. The chili was filled with different beans and veggies and is a dish I’d highly recommend.
The entrée menu consisted of a handful of various wraps. I chose the Mushu Chicken Wrap, a sandwich served cold with an Asian-style sauce. The wrap came with tortilla chips and wedges of gouda cheese, which gave the plate a creative touch. While the wrap was definitely tasty, it could have been better served warm.
Restaurant Week dessert options were a cookie or brownie. The brownie is served with marshmallows and M&Ms on top, which slightly overpowered the brownie’s flavor.
In all, the meal was satisfying, the price was right and the ambiance was ideal.