Yearly Archives: 2006

Park Diner in Binghamton

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Hooray!  Steven arrived in Binghamton today to spend a week with us.  The first place he wanted to hit was a diner, so we took him to the Park, at 119 Conklin Avenue, right on the water.  This is somewhat of an upscale diner, with floor to ceiling windows that look out onto the Susquehanna river.  It was late, so there were slim pickens, but Steven ordered the chopped steak with onions and I had a cheese omelet with home fries.  Matt chose the fried fish special.  The standout:  the home fries.  They were sublime, all brown and crispy with bits of caramelized onion.  If you don’t know what to order at a diner, the breakfast is usually a good bet.  The one annoyance was the ladies’ room – which was a single stall affair!  For such a huge place this is crazy.  Maybe there are additional rest rooms elsewhere, but I could not find them.

Real Chinese food in Endwell, NY

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menu that indicated that they sell real chinese food

Oh, where are you, braised pork belly with preserved cabbage?  What about you, dry-fried tripe with hot peppers?  And you , whole steamed fish with black bean sauce?  Apparently at the Moon Star Restaurant (3600 George F. Highway,  Endwell).  Who knew?  Matthew and I happened upon a Chinese food menu in our own private Motel Hell and laughed when we saw the words REAL CHINESE FOOD.  The menu listed many authentic items on it and not just the Americanized crap, I mean selections.  Makes sense since Endwell is near Endicott, where IBM lives.  I suppose you have to have at least one decent Chinese restaurant for all those engineers.  We got into the car immediately and took Main Street all the way into Endwell and got our fix of what we eat regularly at home.  Everything was the real deal.  I could have sworn I was in Daimo when I tasted the fish, and the pork belly was every bit as good as the version I braise in my own clay pot.

menu from moon star restaurant in endwell new york

Poppy’s last birthday

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This was the "exterimator" Super 8 in Binghamton sent to our room to deal with ants

This started out to be a very sad day.  It is my dad’s 69th birthday, and he was not feeling well —  significantly weak and down in the dumps until about 2 p.m., when he perked up and suggested we go to Denny’s on Vestal Parkway for some coffee.  It is always a good sign when he wants to go for coffee, so we all left his apartment feeling better.  I called Steven and asked if he could come out and he said he would.  This is another hot day in a string of hot days and hot days make challenging situations worse because you can’t think of anything other than how damned hot it is.  Humid, too.  We came back to our scuzzy hotel room and found ants marching in via a hole in the drywall around the window.  This presented a problem since the window was near the desk and the laptop on said desk.  While I appreciated the free, high-speed, wireless service — the only decent thing about the place — it was rendered useless by the column of ants I needed to brush off my calves every now and again.  We stuck a cotton swab into the hole and complained to management.  This was early evening.  We called back at about 10:00 p.m. for an ETA and were told that “the exterminator left, but was on his way back.”  Odd.  He finally arrived after midnight – check out the photo above for his likeness.  I told management that I did not want ants nor the smell of bug spray in the room.  I suggested they look into an actual exterminator, and perhaps even clean around the sides of the building once in awhile.  By that time we were beat, so we sprayed a tiny bit of chemical into the hole, stuffed the swab back in and hoped for the best.  UPDATE:  Months later, we received a full refund based on the complaint we filed

2006 Binghamton Balloon Rally & Spiedie Fest

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bighamton spiedie fest in 2006 – large bottle of sauce

Today we went to the Binghamton Balloon Rally and Spiedie Fest in Otsiningo Park.  The balloon part was last night, actually, and all we saw of that was the traffic jam it caused on Front Street on the way back from Wegman’s.  I realized last night that I hate balloon fests, though not as much as parades or circuses.  The fest was a large affair with all the same chain booths that you find at almost every street fair around as well as local arts and crafts people and religious organizations.  I think I learned more about Jews For Jesus than spiedies.  There were also several spiedie booths, the two largest being Salamida’s and Lupo’s, which I understand are competing entities.  We sampled one chicken and one pork at the former and two lamb at the latter.  I don’t know which was the best — they were all fine, but I am partial to the stronger taste of lamb.

salamida's spiedies

Salamida’s spiedies

We spent several hours there since there was so much ground to cover and, I must say, it was a cut above.  We had been hearing on the radio for weeks that John Corbett would be there performing, and until I arrived at the event I thought it was the Sex and the City guy.  I kept wondering why he would be there – that maybe he was from Binghamton – and even chatted with Steve about it.  Turns out John Corbett is a country music act.  Matt glared at me when he realized my mistake, thinking I was totally out of it.

Crawdads

Crawdads

We had some chain booth crawdads (you know, crayfish) with remoulade and then hopped on one of the shuttle buses back to Broome County Community College, where the car was parked.  This event sets up a seriously efficient shuttle system.  Alameda County Transit should contact these people for advice.

Wegman’s and Super 8

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The hole in our bathroom door in our hotel room

We checked into the super bad Super 8 in Binghamton this afternoon.  Why?  Well, although the Motel 6 was fab, it did not have free (or even pay) high-speed wireless internet.  When you have a website, dial-up becomes old quickly.  So we thought we’d “upgrade” for a couple weeks and were looking forward it.  Upon arrival at check-in, we came upon a woman railing about the lack of extra pillows, the bad AC and the dampness.  She said that this was “the worst place she ever paid to stay.”  We’d have to agree.  Our room was, overall, tacky, dirty, dank, sticky and broken down.  There was something akin to a gunshot hole in the back of the bathroom door, and the horrors that existed behind the toilet in the bathroom rivaled the worst gas station rest room ever.  Can you say “water damage” or “dry rot?”  The walls in the place were stained and had a yellow hue that had nothing to do with paint color, and the furniture was well past its prime.  The management may want to — and I know this is a crazy idea — put some of their profits back into the business.  But, if you can handle serious cooties, they do have a fast wireless internet connection. 

Package of whitefish at wegman's in binghamton new york

After we hung out a bit we drove over to Wegman’s, a tony supermarket chain, to get some snacks for dinner.  Wegman’s is like Whole Foods, so we were able to get decent take-out sushi, cheese and whatnot for a hotel room picnic.  There were piles of vacuum-packed ready-to-cook spiedie meat in refrigerated display cases and, joy of joys!, pieces of whole smoked whitefish from the Acme Fish Corporation in Brooklyn, New York.  Silky, sensuous smoked whitefish flesh….salty, savory, oily, luscious smoked whitefish flesh.    UPDATE:  Months later, we received a full refund based on the complaint we filed.  That was nice.