Author Archives: Renate Valencia

Tour of Binghamton plus Lupo’s

Italian sub from Lupo's in Binghamton, New York

Italian sub from Lupo's in Binghamton, New York

Steven, Matt and I took a self-guided tour of downtown Binghamton, snapping pictures of some of the interesting buildings.  We also happened upon the Binghamton Walk of Fame.  I put together a separate photo album, but I’ll include the attractive Perry Building here in the blog, used in the film Liebestraum.  Not the best movie of all time, but interesting in terms of being filmed in Bingoland and for its creepy feel. 

The Perry Building in Binghamton, New York

The Perry Building in Binghamton, New York

The only early-in-the-day food related note, other than the usual trip to Denny’s for coffee, involved some overripe peaches purchased at the farmer’s market.  They got mushy sitting in the hot car, but weren’t such great shakes to begin with.  What’s with the lousy peaches this year? 

Lupo's in binghamton new york

Steven wanted spiedies for dinner, so my dad said, “Go to Lupo’s.  They’re crazy with this Lupo’s stuff around here.  They’re the really famous ones.”  OK, well, sold.  We drove over the Chenango River to 6 West Water Street and ordered up.  Steve and Matt both got large pork spiedie subs and I the large Italian.  It’s  a casual place plastered with posters of spiedie fests gone by. 

Spiedie from Lupo's in Bingthamton, New York

Spiedie from Lupo's in Bingthamton, New York

Lupo’s lighting is almost fluorescent, so no matter what time it is it feels like 3 a.m., you’re drunk, and you wandered over to eat your way sober before heading home to bed.  The subs were good, though – particularly mine.  Matt was so enamored of my sandwich that I thought his eyes were going to drill holes into it.  I finally handed him some cash and suggested he get his own and to leave me in peace, which he happily did.  Lupo’s does turn out a moist pork spiedie, which is not without merit given how easy it is to overcook pork loin, so don’t be misled by all this talk about the Italian subs.  I almost forgot about the salt potatoes!  We ordered something called “salt potatoes” but did not know what they were.  Matthew and I had seen these advertised at the spiedie fest, in fact.  They turned out to be small potatoes in their jackets, boiled or possibly steamed with plenty of salt, and then rolled in lots of butter.  In Germany there is a potato dish called salt potatoes (Salzkartoffel), but it is nothing like this.  I will have to do a little research as said taters were quite salty and savory from skin to center.

Lupo's salt potatoes

Lupo's salt potatoes

WTC movie stunk, we thought, but TastyKakes were good

hotel room food stash

First we went to that nasty-wasty Lourdes Oncology unit for my dad’s blood work.  Then it was on to the movies to see World Trade Center.  Matthew liked it, my dad and Steve couldn’t stand it, and I thought it wasn’t worth any discussion one way or the other — too sappy and manipulative.  The events are moving enough; Hollywood needn’t have hit us over the head with a sledge hammer.  We three moved back to Motel 6 and were glad of it.  We made sure to transport our food stash, which had a goodly supply of TastyKakes, something hard to come by for us.

Park Diner in Binghamton

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

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

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