Phil's Chicken House

Name: Phil's Chicken House
Location: 1208 Maine Rd., Endicott, NY 13760
Phone: (607) 748-6855
Cuisine: American BBQ
Price: $10-$15 per adult, $5-$10 per child

Review:
Phil's Chicken House has been a Southern Tier institution for close to fifty years, offering take-out, buffet-style BBQ chicken dinners, and a Sunday brunch buffet to longtime local patrons and curious outsiders. Having never been, we decided to go for dinner last night for the buffet, which they offer seven days a week with some variations depending on which night you go.

The restaurant is one of very few in the West Corners area just north and west of Endicott. Upon arriving at Phil's for the buffet, you'll want to enter through the back, which means parking behind the restaurant and finding the entrance for the lower level. You can also enter via the upper floor but will be directed to take the stairs off the right to find the dining room. We found the dining room to be typical of what you'd expect of a "family restaurant," with a few booths along the left and some larger tables to accommodate bigger parties on the right side. A waitress came by and took our drink order and provided us a large bucket in which to place the chicken bones.

The buffet ($9.99 per adult) is not gigantic in size, but has a lot of really good options. For soups, they have both chicken noodle and cream of broccoli available regularly. A few different kinds of bread (white, garlic, banana, and pumpkin varieties) were available. There's a full salad bar complete with side salads--potato, macaroni, cole slaw. And then there was the main courses, BBQ chicken, spare ribs, beef tips, real homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, a seafood casserole, rice pilaf, buttered green beans, and perhaps a few other things I didn't get to. I did my best to try everything, but as soon as I tried the chicken, I knew I'd be eating more of that than anything else.

The soup was good if unremarkable, and I enjoyed the salad bar too. The potato salad was pretty delicious and I'm not sure if the Thousand Island dressing was homemade or not, but whatever it was, I liked it. The pumpkin bread (not something I usually enjoy) was a definite highlight also--very moist and well-spiced and just overall very tasty.

The real draw of Phil's Chicken House, is, obviously, the BBQ chicken. A little research has turned up that the style of chicken that Phil's serves is unique to this area (the Southern Tier region south of the Finger Lakes) and is called Cornell Chicken, thus named due to its being invented by a professor at Cornell back in the 1940's. This style involves marinading the chicken in a mixture of egg, vegetable oil, cider vinegar, salt, poultry seasoning, and black pepper before grilling. I'm not sure if Phil's uses this recipe or some variant thereof, but this was some of the most tender, delicious chicken I've ever had. I admired that it wasn't at all greasy, but rather juicy with tons of flavor.

The chicken was, in my mind, the only real standout on the buffet. The barbecued spare ribs were passable, but left me pining for the recently-departed Theo's. The beef tips were tasty if perhaps a little on the tough side, while the mashed potatoes and mac & cheese were good but not transcendent.

When it came time for dessert, I opted to try the dessert of the month, Cherry Cobbler. It should be noted that while desserts are not available on the buffet, you get a free dessert with the purchase of the buffet. So definitely save a little room. The cherry cobbler was really tasty with fresh real whipped cream on top. It was pretty much like eating really good cherry pie out of a cup. I would certainly order it again, given the opportunity.

Overall, if you're looking for a solid home-style, family restaurant in the Triple Cities, Phil's Chicken House is exactly what you're looking for. This would be an excellent place to bring families with small children and the grandparents alike; there's certainly something for everyone to enjoy. From my "foodie" perspective, the Cornell Chicken is reason enough for me to make a return visit. Next time you're thinking of heading over to the Cracker Barrel, I encourage you to consider giving Phil's your business instead.

Grade: B

Mad Moose Saloon

Name: Mad Moose Saloon
Location: 53 Chenango St, Binghamton, NY 13901
Phone: (607) 723-3470
Cuisine: Southern BBQ/Wood-Fired Pizza
Price: Entrees $10-$15, pizzas about the same

Review:
Mad Moose Saloon, or "The Moose" as everyone including myself seems to call it, is a unique restaurant to Binghamton's dining landscape, and a place I've been to countless times over the years. The Moose first opened about five years ago as an upscale bar/lounge/nightclub with large, comfortable couches, a small dance floor, and huge projection screen TVs. Since then, it has progressively morphed into a casual dining restaurant which happens to have a humongous bar adjacent. It has been interesting to watch this progression over the years as a loyal patron who has had high hopes for The Moose from day one. This is easily one of the best-looking places in town and a really comfortable place to hang out with large groups of friends in a spacious atmosphere. Its location near the intersection of State St. and Henry St. puts it far enough away from downtown that the clientele tends to be a little older than what you'd expect a couple blocks down.

Since the Mad Moose opened for food a year or two ago, I have always been interested in trying it out, but had never actually done so until last night. I was especially interested after I found out that the Moose had procured the services of Chef Dunster, formerly of D.C. Dunster's and Zazou across the street. Those are places I'd never been to, but had heard from many people that they were quite good and quite unique as Binghamton eateries go. Anyhow, I was meeting some friends at the Moose for a going-away party at 8:00 PM and decided to arrive an hour earlier than that to try the food. With Megan out of town for the evening, my friend Tom (also a longtime patron) came along and we gave it a shot.

The atmosphere at Mad Moose is unparalleled in downtown Binghamton. This is the best-looking place in town, a dimly-lit, underground location with spacious booths, high-top tables, and the biggest bar I've ever seen. The space is well-decorated. There's a clear dead-animal motif with all sorts of animal busts protruding from the walls. The atmosphere is rustic yet somehow feels a little upscale. On ambiance alone, this has long been one of my favorite places to go in Binghamton.

We arrived shortly after 7:00 PM and got a table pretty quickly. It was unclear whether we were to seat ourselves, or be seated by a host/hostess. A hostess kind of weakly pointed toward an open table so we sat ourselves there. Five minutes later, we had menus.

The menu at The Moose is totally up my alley. They have all sorts of specialty wood-fired pizzas, ribs, pulled pork, chili, and several other items that appeal to rampant carnivores such as myself. The side dishes (from which you can choose two with the purchase of any entree) sounded equally tasty. Some options for sides include sweet potato fries with a tabasco-honey glaze, root beer baked beans, Chef Dunster's "famous" cole slaw, and mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallow sauce. With Theo's in Johnson City gone by the wayside, I didn't think I'd find sides like these again in the Triple Cities.

I decided to try the Pulled Pork Platter and opted to go with the baked beans and the mashed sweet potatoes for my sides. I also ordered a cup of chili as a starter. Tom decided to try the Pulled Pork Empanadas and got a bowl of the soup of the day, a spicy turkey soup. With the empanadas, Tom elected to try the aforementioned sweet potato fries.

A few minutes later, our soups arrived. I thought the chili was very good. In addition to the usual ground beef, I also detected some pulled pork in there. With beans, chopped onions, stewed tomatoes, sour cream, and jack cheese, this was some very good chili. I would've preferred it a little spicier, but that's what I say about most everything I eat. Tom found the turkey soup "pretty good" but was a little bothered by the discovery of a bone in the soup. Not a huge deal, but lack of attention to details such as those would become a theme of the meal. So the bone was a harbinger of mistakes to come.

After we were done with our soups, the waiting game began. Both of us were pretty irked by the shoddy service, especially since it was now after 8:00 and the rest of our posse had arrived. We had hoped to be done eating by this point. We watched as those around us who had come in after us got their meals, and after about 40-45 minutes from the time we finished our soups, we finally got ours.

My pulled pork was awful. AWFUL. I'd say at least a third of what was on the plate was fat. The rest of it was mediocre and covered with a bland, weird barbecue sauce that reminded me of Heinz' 57. As someone who typically loooooooves pulled pork, I found this massively disappointing and a far cry from the pulled pork I had the other day at the Big Dipper BBQ in Apalachin. That was some delicious stuff....this was not. On the plus side, the sides were both excellent. I enjoyed the root beer baked beans and the mashed sweet potatoes were very good and somewhat reminiscent of the candied yams I used to order at Theo's.

For what it's worth, Tom thought his meal was "pretty good." I tried a bite of his empanadas and thought they were decent and an interesting combination of flavors...southern BBQ-meets-southwestern. The sweet potato fries did not impress me much. They looked and tasted a little bit burned and the "tabasco" portion of the tabasco-honey glaze was seemingly missing. Tom also noted that he was not impressed with the presentation of the food, in baskets instead of on plates. I tended to agree, but there were obviously other things that bothered me more.

After eating we paid the bill (by now it was almost 9:00) and headed over to the bar to join the rest of our group. Speaking of the bar, something that bothers me is that the Mad Moose serves all of their beer in Mason jars. I can understand why they could get away with serving crappy swill like Bud Light in a Mason jar, but a few weeks back they had Brooklyn Brewery's Dark Matter on tap, and it would've been nice to experience this rare bourbon-aged beer in a snifter or wine glass. But the bartenders at the Mad Moose range between unknowledgeable and just plain stupid. After all, this is the place where Megan once ordered an Amaretto Sour and was asked by the bartender, "what's in that?" A: you're the bartender, you tell me, and B: what the hell do you think's in an amaretto sour?

Within an half-hour after finishing eating, I started to get some massive stomach pains and had to leave the party early. I'll stop short of saying that my illness was caused outright by the food I had eaten, but I will say that I was fine before I got there...

I don't know that I would eat the food at Mad Moose again. I am still interested in trying the pizza, but I can't fathom that it would be a place I'd go for pizza often given the number of other quality pizza options in the area. I do know that the service was beyond slow, the pulled pork was positively disgusting, and that I have felt ill since consuming the food. At the same time, the sides were awesome, and the atmosphere that the restaurant provides is the best in the area. It truly is a fine place to hang out with friends and have some drinks in a cool atmosphere. I feel awful to give such a harsh grade to a place I've had a lot of enjoyable experiences in over the years, but as a restaurant, I did not find The Moose up to par from a food or service standpoint, and this is "Tasting Binghamton," not "Cool Places to Hang Out in Binghamton." Frankly, this grade is generous; had this been my first visit to the Mad Moose, it would have been my only visit.

Grade: C

Big Dipper BBQ

Name: Big Dipper BBQ
Location: Route 434, Apalachin, NY 13732
Phone: (607) 625-5129
Cuisine: Barbecue (Ribs/Chicken/Pulled Pork)
Price: Less than $10 per person

Review:
Yesterday I was driving down the Vestal Parkway, heading westbound in search of lunch. I decided that the first place I encountered to my right that looked palatable would be my destination. I kept driving and driving, crossed the border into Tioga County, and wound up stopping at the Big Dipper BBQ in Apalachin. It's always been a place I'd been interested in trying, having passed it while driving on Route 17 between Binghamton and Owego countless times over the years. I am a big fan of barbecue in general, and with the recent demise of Theo's, I have been looking for something to take its place. Big Dipper is more than an adequate substitute.

I arrived at the Big Dipper around 1:30 PM and found it to be a small stand with a gigantic charcoal grill in front where several chickens were being grilled. Adjacent to the stand are a bunch of covered picnic tables for those who choose to eat there, as I did. You can also get your order to-go if you prefer. At any rate, I was greeted by the folks working the grill and placed my order with the cheerful teenage cashier. After a quick scan of the menu consisting of ribs, chicken, and pulled pork options, I opted to go with the Pulled Pork Dinner ($8.50). This consisted of a pulled pork sandwich and two sides; I went with the salt potatoes and baked beans. Other options include cole slaw, potato salad, and macaroni salad.

The first thing I noticed about the pulled pork sandwich was its massive size. This was pretty much a giant Italian sub roll stuffed to the gills with pulled pork. After eating this, I certainly wasn't hungry for the entire rest of the day. I won't say that this was the best pulled pork I've ever had, but it was delicious and very juicy barbecue. I devoured the sandwich very quickly and would eat another one in a heartbeat.

The sides were a little less spectacular, but served as an ample complement to the pulled pork. The baked beans were fairly typical and tasted like they could've been the canned variety, while the salt potatoes were a notch better. Of course, I came to the Big Dipper for the barbecue, and I was not disappointed in what I found in that regard.

The Big Dipper BBQ is certainly worth checking out. I found it to be very good barbecue with enormous portions at extremely reasonable prices. It's directly adjacent to the Big Dipper Ice Cream stand as well, so head on out to Apalachin, experience some local charm, eat some barbecue, get some ice cream for dessert, and make the 15-minute drive back to Binghamton with a smile on your face, knowing that you've just experienced one of the area's best-kept secrets.

Grade: B+

R.I.P., Theo's Southern Style Cuisine

I regret to inform that Theo's Southern Style Cuisine is no more.

In its day (in Johnson City right by the arch) Theo's was an awesome place for Southern BBQ. Great ribs and chicken and amazing sides like scalloped potatoes, candied yams, baked beans, fried okra, and sweet potato fries. And that goes without mentioning the two best items on their menu, the cornbread, which was most certainly the best I've ever had, and the WINGS(!!!) which were easily the biggest and perhaps the best I've ever had. Man, I could go for a dozen Sweet & Sassy wings and a Pork BBQ sandwich with sweet potato fries right about now...

In recent years, Theo's had scaled back due to having their business seized by the IRS which forced them to move out of the JC location. Still, people demanded more delicious BBQ, and the folks at Manley's Mart on Downs Ave. gave Theo's a chance in their small gas station/convenience store to get back up and running under the name Theo's Express. I believe Theo's was there for maybe a year or two, occupying under a slightly abbreviated menu. It was mostly the same quality food delivered by the same nice folks, and all was good with the world.

But I was driving by Manley's today and noticed that the Theo's signage had been taken down. I went in and talked to the employees at Manley's who said that Theo's had indeed moved out a short time ago, and they were preparing the spot for a deli that would be moving into the location next week. I inquired as to whether Theo's would be moving someplace else, to a new location, and they didn't think so.

Bummer.

Guess I'll have to try out the Mad Moose's BBQ sometime soon to see if Binghamton still has a good BBQ joint in its midst...but for now, I wish the Felton family good luck in their future ventures. Very nice family and I hope to see them re-emerge on the Binghamton food scene at some point soon.