The casual vibes of the late-night favorite Binghamton Hots welcome you with its perpetually opened doors and the aroma of fries and greasy goodness. As you step into the red-walled eatery under twinkling lights that hang from exposed ducts, the seemingly endless options Binghamton Hots offers are posted on a chalkboard on the back wall. Students normally pour in and out of the doors after a night on State Street, riding the fragrant wave of delicious fried food.

Binghamton Hots offers food that’s best paired with good company and no reluctance in leaving a clean plate. To say I enjoyed a full three-course meal at Binghamton Hots, however, is a sentence I never thought I’d say. The late-night hot spot is home to everyone’s favorite midnight snacks, but few realize that its doors open at 11:30 a.m. for lunch. For Restaurant Week, Binghamton Hots is offering a lunch of their house favorites for $12.

For an appetizer, I ordered the golden squash and sweet corn soup. Though not entirely what you’d expect for Hots, but it was a sweet, light vegetable medley. A perfect portion for a lunch starter: not too much and not too little.

As the main course, I went with a menu item unfamiliar to me, the Cowboy Burger, topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, “onion hay” and K.C. barbecue sauce. Now, if you’re like me, you had no idea what onion hay is. Essentially, it’s a hybrid between fries and onion rings — fried onions in thin, delicious and crunchy french fry form. K.C. barbecue sauce is Kansas City barbecue sauce, known for its harmony of sweet molasses and spicy kick. You can hear the burger before it comes, as the grill sizzles in the back of the restaurant, and then smell it before it arrives. When it does come to the table, it’s stacked with the patty, bacon and a pile of onion hay. Being a huge fan of onion rings, I loved the burger down to the last bite. The salty onion hay offsets the sweet K.C. barbecue sauce to create a well-balanced burger that simply melts in your mouth. The pile of onion hay along with the burger patty, cheddar and bacon seemed a bit overwhelming for the relatively small bun all of it sat on, so I simply ate some onion hay off the top to lighten the load before diving in.

For dessert, I ordered the pumpkin roll, described as “pumpkin bread, cream cheese filling [and] caramel drizzle.” I was not as impressed with this course as I had been with the other ones. It appeared to just be the fall edition of a Swiss roll with a bit of caramel drizzled on top of it, and after my first bite, my initial impression was simply confirmed. The dessert was a sweet ending to a good meal, but standing alone, was a let-down.

The overall presentation of the food was modest at best. We grabbed plastic silverware from the electronic versions of the utensil dispensers they have in the Marketplace and the food came in red baskets and plates. I didn’t expect an upscale presentation, just a relatively cheap but quality meal; and that’s what I got. Binghamton Hots is not the place to go if you’re looking for garnished plate and an upscale dining experience, but it will leave you with a full belly and some money in your pocket for next weekend.