The Galley Tavern

Name: The Galley Tavern
Location: 409 Hooper Rd., Ste. 5, Endwell, NY 13760
Phone: (607) 748-6544
Cuisine: American pub food
Price: Around $10-$15 per person

Review:
One kind of restaurant that has not received a whole lot of fanfare on this blog has been the "bar and grill" variety. I'm not sure if that's because the styles of food normally found at such establishments does not appeal to us as much as others, or if we view these places more as "bars" than as "grills," but whatever the reason, we have yet to visit and offer our opinion on many of these sorts of places. And there are literally dozens to choose from throughout the Triple Cities.

Of the pub food scene, the only ones we've reviewed so far are Kelly's Sports Bar in Endicott (home to popular Wednesday night Team Trivia that we have been known to frequent), Vestal's Ale House (a review which admittedly was more of an excuse for me to talk about snooty beer than about food), and JC's Treaty of Versailles-predating hot-pie haven The Oasis. Oh, and Hurricane Rylie's in Endicott, which I think fancies itself more of a restaurant than a bar anyway. Some places I'd like to try out include Binghamton's South Side Yanni's, Harry Tuft's in Endicott, Tom & Marty's in downtown Binghamton, among others. After all, if we're going to Taste Binghamton, it's not always going to be about fine dining. Sometimes, you just want a half-dozen wings and a good burger, and so we headed to The Galley in Endwell to see if they could fulfill that desire.

The Galley is located on Hooper Road in a small plaza between Watson Blvd. and Country Club Rd. It's really kind of two restaurants in one, a bar to the right and a dining room (cleverly named "Galley Too") to the left. I'd advise opting for a table in the dining room rather than the high-top tables with uncomfortable wooden stools in the bar area where we sat.

The menu has all the usual pub food--burgers, sandwiches, pizza, wings, fried appetizers--which was exactly the kind of thing we were looking for this evening. I opted to go with a half-dozen medium wings and the Black and Bleu burger (peppercorns and crumbly bleu cheese) and Megan ordered the BBQ Burger (BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese, and bacon) with curly fries. We were given complimentary popcorn (somewhat reminiscent of Tully's on the Vestal Parkway) to start the meal which tied us over until our entrees arrived.

The wings were decent, certainly nothing to get too excited about. They had good flavor but as far as wings go, they were on the small side and overall inferior to those at Kelly's in Endicott. The burger, on the other hand, was much better. With a little A-1 sauce to complement the peppercorns and a healthy portion of crumbled bleu cheese, this was a tasty burger and certainly one I'd order again. Megan was also happy with her burger and fries; I tried the BBQ burger and I think I liked it even more than the one I got.

Since The Galley is a bar also, I should also mention the beer tap selection for those who care about that kind of thing. Mediocre at best. I saw a tap with Smithwick's and one with Sam Adams Winter Lager, but for those seeking a quality microbrew, this isn't the place to find one.

Service at The Galley was friendly, but somewhat spotty. It took us forever to get straws for our drinks, and service toward the end of the meal was a little slow. But overall, I'd have to say that The Galley was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be: a good place to come and have a couple drinks, grab a burger, watch some sports, and hang out with friends. It's not hard to believe that they've been in business since 1972. Don't expect anything transcendent from a culinary perspective, but for pub fare, The Galley generally gets the job done.

Grade: B

Dillinger's "Celtic Pub" and Eatery

Name: Dillinger's "Celtic Pub" and Eatery
Location: 77 State St., Binghamton, NY 13903
Phone: (607) 724-7779
Cuisine: Pub fare (Burgers/sandwiches/wings)
Price: Which price? The printed one or the one they charge?

Review:
I absolutely hate Dillinger's. Here are five reasons why:

1. A little history lesson: John Dillinger was born in Indiana. He was mainly of German heritage. What John Dillinger has to do with a Celtic Pub, I have no idea.

2. The place is nearly always crowded, unbearably loud to the point that I could not hear the people across the table from me, and is the veritable meat market of downtown Binghamton, full of phony skanks and fratboys. If that makes me sound like Holden Caulfield, so be it.

3. I've eaten there four times. The first time, I got a burger. It was garbage. The second time, I got hot wings. They had a good level of spiciness, but were fatty and undercooked. I swore I would not get them again. The third time, I had nachos. I also had explosive diarrhea for the ensuing 48 hours. The fourth time, last night, I tried the wings again. After all, they were on special for $4.50/dozen. They were fatty and overcooked, and I was charged $6.75. I should listen to myself more often.

4. They used to have some good beers in bottles, like microbrews from Dogfish Head and Great Lakes. Now they just have signs on the wall advertising that they sell Dogfish Head and Great Lakes WHEN THEY ACTUALLY DO NOT SELL THEM!!! Hey look, we're cool, we sell microbrews!!! Oh wait, we don't. Womp womp.

And the biggie...

5. This is a "Celtic Pub" that DOES NOT SELL BEER ON TAP. Not even a tap for Guinness, in this "Celtic Pub"? Are you kidding me?

As a place to hang out before the crowds hit, Dillinger's is fine. It's a really nice space and there's a covered patio outside. As a place to eat and/or drink, Dillinger's is awful. Feel free to call me a snob all you want, but there's no way you'll convince me that Dillinger's is an establishment worth spending a dime in.

Grade: F

Blind Tiger Pub

Name: Blind Tiger Pub
Location: 4402 Watson Blvd., Johnson City, NY 13790
Phone: (607) 729 - 8944
Cuisine: Burgers/Sandwiches/Wraps/Wings
Attire: Casual
Price: $25 for two

Review:
I hate reviews like the one I'm about to embark upon here. I don't take pleasure in slamming a restaurant no matter how bad it is. There are real people behind the scenes who work hard to keep a place afloat, and I appreciate that.

But here it is.

The Blind Tiger Pub is a Johnson City restaurant/bar that features live music several nights a week. It has a pretty decent atmosphere that includes outdoor covered seating and both an outdoor and indoor bar. Tap selection is not bad for the area. I think I saw some taps with Blue Point and Smuttynose...not too shabby for a little neighborhood bar. The food menu consists of the usual "bar and grill" type stuff--burgers, wraps, sandwiches, wings, fried appetizers--and it's not bad. What is bad--beyond bad, really--is the service. The word "abysmal" comes to mind.

Megan and I arrived at 12:25 PM on a Tuesday for lunch. Since it was a nice day, we decided to sit outside. By 12:40 PM, we had menus. We placed our drink order and our food order soon thereafter. Megan really wanted a BLT (she had been there before and had the BLT) but it was no longer on their menu, despite what their website says. She went with the Chicken Caesar Wrap instead. I opted for the Pulled Pork Sandwich myself. Both were $8.75 and came with chips and a pickle. You can add fries or other sides for a couple additional dollars. A little pricey, I thought.

The food came out in a reasonable amount of time, around 12:55.



I was pleased with the pulled pork. It had nice smoky flavor and was far better than I expected it to be. No Dinosaur BBQ or anything but very solid nonetheless. Megan was pleased with her wrap as well. I tried a few bites and was equally impressed. Very tasty, nice Caesar dressing, flavorful grilled chicken. By 1:05 we had polished off both baskets of food and were pretty well satisfied. So, you're wondering, what's the problem? Had to wait a bit for menus at the beginning of the meal, but so what?

Well, that's when the real wait began. There is nothing that Megan and I hate more than having to wait an inordinate amount of time for our check. When we're done eating, we want to pay, head out, and get on with our day. No matter how good the food is at an establishment, if the service is awful, we are not going to be inclined to return.

1:15 came. No waitress to be found. Begin glancing at watch.

1:20. No luck, yet we see her servicing other adjacent tables. Starting to get pissed off.

1:25. Nah. Seething.

1:30. Fully pissed. Waitress finally shows her face. Yells from across the deck, three tables away--"Do you guys want your check?" Man, she can't even be bothered to walk over to our table after a full 35 minutes of not checking on us, not to mention the 15 minutes it took for us to get menus. Seriously, how rude.

Ummm, yeah, I wanted it 20 minutes ago.

1:40. A full ten minutes later, the check finally arrives. $23 it is. A little steep, methinks, for two sandwiches with no sides and iced tea to drink.

Not wanting to chance another 10 minute wait, we opted to pay cash.

Ahhh, look who decided to hover around the table when money's on the line! Pretty quick to accept our money yet not provide us any actual service, huh?

Enjoy your $2 tip. Don't spend it all in one place.

Grade: D

Kelly's Sports Bar

Name: Kelly's Sports Bar
Location: 102 N. Page Ave., Endicott, New York 13760
Phone: (607) 785-4444
Cuisine: Bar Food
Attire: Casual
Price: $20 for two

Review:
Kelly's is a bit of a one-trick pony as food goes. They have a wide array of deep fried appetizers like onion rings, french fries, sweet potato fries, jalapeno poppers, and other similar items. They also have a sandwich menu with several different burgers and wraps, as well as the local delicacy, spiedies. If you're going to eat at Kelly's, I highly advise against going with any of these options. Instead, go with their specialty--the wings.

Kelly's is a bit of an oddity in terms of layout. There are two entrances, a bar entrance and a restaurant entrance. There are some small tables adjacent to the bar, a small room of circular tables between the bar and the main dining area, and the main dining area which is comprised of huge rectangular tables with another bar on the right side of the room. They used to have a couple pretty good waitresses, but fired their entire staff one day about four months ago. Ever since, the service has been less than spectacular, with the wait staff being largely less-than-attentive. Around the restaurant are several large televisions. They offer the NFL Sunday Ticket during football season so you can watch all games in the same place. I'd imagine it'd be a pretty good place to watch the games; I've never actually done so. What I have gone to Kelly's for, many times, is the Wednesday night Team Trivia hosted by DJ Thaddeus. For those who like trivia, I find this one to be (generally) one of the best in the area. It's a really good atmosphere for trivia. $50 cash to the winner, $25 gift certificate for second, and a chance to win even more in the jackpot.

This is a bar, so it'd probably be worthwhile to discuss the beer selection briefly, which is pretty poor. It's not the worst in the area, as they at least have Newcastle, Bass, and Magic Hat #9, which are reasonable I guess. No microbrews to speak of, though, which is a drawback. But it's not as if I would come here to drink independent of trivia night.

As for the food, like I said, pretty mediocre. Over the years I've had a lot of the stuff on the menu. The pizza is edible but unspectacular, the french fries and sweet potato fries are OK for something to munch on. Of the appetizers I think I prefer the onion rings best. Even still, they are ordinary, fried, greasy onion rings. Blah.

The burgers are nothing to get excited about. The Bacon Bleu Cheese Burger is probably the best of the lot, but I make better burgers at home. The Spiedie Platter is one of the menu's better options. You get an enormous portion of either chicken or pork spiedies, with grilled onions, peppers, and mushrooms, together with several slices of Italian bread (the appropriate bread option for spiedies). These spiedies are good but I don't find much comparison with the best spiedies in the area, like Spiedie and Rib Pit or Sharkey's. The bread they give you is flimsy Wonder Bread-ish stuff which doesn't help the cause.

Onward to what Kelly's actually does well--the wings. These are good-sized wings with several different sauce options, and are among the better wings you can get in the Southern Tier. You can get them mild or hot, garlic or hot garlic, BBQ or hot BBQ, or honey mustard. If the hot is too weak for you, there's also a flavor called "suicide" which I presume jacks up the heat a bit more. I'm partial to the hot BBQ (a recent menu addition). The BBQ sauce has a pretty strong flavor that I didn't care for at first but have grown to like quite a bit. If you're going to eat at Kelly's, the wings are probably your best bet. Still, they aren't anywhere remotely near the best wings I've ever had, or anything like that.

Overall, Kelly's is an average local sports bar. Average beer selection, average food menu somewhat redeemed by a wide selection and its above-average wings. The Team Trivia is a good time with the layout of the restaurant and its big tables providing a good atmosphere for nerding out with a larger group of friends. The service can be pretty bad from time to time, but could be worse. It could be the Ale House.

Grade: C+