Hal's Deli

Tom: My parents often talk about how my family would go to Hal's Deli a lot when we children were younger, but I had never been there since I could remember. Thus, I didn't really know what to think about going to Hal's Deli. It's always been there, I'd never really seen the inside, but I'd passed by it multiple days a week for many years. Frequent special guest Annie was there for this particular meal.

(The dining area which took Tommy's breath away)

When we went in, what I thought would just be like a countertop and a few tables was actually a full-fledged restaurant, and we were immediately greeted by Hal's wife, the man himself having passed away some years ago. We were quickly shown to a small table, and the restaurant was decently full with people eating their modest meals. Hal's has a pretty nice menu for a deli, with extensive sandwich choices and salads and the like. I ended up ordering a hot turkey with gravy kinda deal, and some fries.

It was pretty good! Getting turkey with gravy and fries cheaply can result in some pretty scary looking dishes, but Hal's pretty much solidly delivered. Service was pretty quick, and the prices were incredibly low for a sit-down restaurant.

(T's sandwich)

Sam: My memory is a little fuzzy on this trip due to the fact that it took place at least three months ago but i'll try my best here people, i'll try my best. As Tommy mentioned above the prices were really low. Like, REALLY low you guys and that's usually not a bad feature. It could lead to some nervousness concerning the quality of the food but Hal's has been around for long enough that I wasn't too worried about being horribly poisoned.

(My club. Sam's club)

(Side o' fries)

Based on the photographs i've got from this trip it seems that I ordered some sort of turkey club. It also appears that my sandwich came with chips and I ordered an additional side of french fries (I am so cooky). Alright, the pictures also show that Annie ordered some soup maybe? And also a tuna melt. I apologize for the vagueness of this review but it was oh so long ago! I don't remember being upset at this meal, which happens a lot, so i think it's safe to say we enjoyed ourselves enough.

(Annie's soup)

(Annie's meal)

I think I can honestly say that i'd eat at Hal's again if the opportunity presented itself. It's pretty good food for cheap and I'm not one to turn that down. The real problem is the location: The commons. I ate goin' down there. It always seems like such a hassle to me and has been a point of contention between Tommy and myself in the past when we've tried picking out a place to eat. Luckily we don't have that problem anymore since the invention of the blog but I can still resent him for other things.

Wildfire

Jonah:
Due to a series of miscommunications, Sam is in Boston and Tommy and I are not. As such I will be replacing Sam on this review. When I asked Tommy where he wanted to go, he mentioned that there was "this new comfort food place where The Lost Dog used to be." The name of the place was Wildfire, and it had a sort of fancy-looking online menu that blended good old-fashioned home-style cooking with the fast-paced trendiness of a silicon valley cafe where everyone is wearing designer jeans and semi-formal collared shirts. We decided to check it out.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we discovered that the setup was more or less identical to that of the Lost Dog Cafe, so much so that I briefly questioned if it had actually closed. The waiting staff and the ambiance were all pleasant enough, but unfortunately that is about the best thing that can be said about Wildfire. Before the meal we were provided with bread rolls and olive oil, a combination to which I am quite partial. I initially told Tommy that the bread was quite good, but quickly realized that by "good" I meant "tasteless yet warm." Which is still saying something, as many restaurants do not give you warm bread.

Tommy sitting. Note the candle: that's called ambiance.

For an appetizer we ordered fried mozzarella sticks coated in pine nuts. This sounds pretty good in theory, and they tasted slightly better than your average microwavable fried cheese. However, this has to be weighed against the fact that it cost $7. I know for a fact that you can get over twenty-five microwavable mozzarella sticks for less than that. As a main course I ordered the Grown Up Mac and Cheese with Lobster, a dish which really put the nail in the coffin in which my positive feelings towards Wildfire would be soon buried. First of all, they chose to have three cheeses as opposed to one in the Mac and Cheese sauce. This was a mistake. The trifecta of flavors clashed in my mouth in a way that was only rivaled by the new trailer for Clash of the Titans (March 26, 2010). Also it is possible that some of the cheese was burnt. In any case, the dish was barely tolerable, especially considering that all the lobster bits were also irrevocably coated in the three-cheese sauce. Partly due to the bad taste, and partly due to the fact that my schedule forces me to eat all three meals in the space of four or five hours, I was unable to finish the Grown Up Mac and Cheese with Lobster. Not wanting to waste food--even food I don't like--I asked for a box to take the dish home, and lo and behold there was a silver lining: the box was pretty nice.

That's a nice box!

Tom:

As you may have noticed, this Jonah character is somewhat different than your traditional Sam. What he lacks in photographic ability he seems to more than make up for with fiery passion and venomous wit (we mean no ill will toward Wildfire, he is just having a fun time on the internet being mean). I guess everyone needs to vent sometime.

Whenever I hear "comfort food restaurant" I get really excited, but I don't seem to have the best time at any place that claims to be one of these. This includes several recent contenders in Ithaca and one or two places I have tried in Philly. I'm not gonna pretend to know what makes a great mac and cheese or meat loaf or whatever, but whatever take these places have on the genre seems to be pretty boring most of the time. The menus also tend to be pretty small. That being said, I didn't mind my meal at Wildfire. The service was very quick for a restaurant of this nature and the waitstaff was attentive. I basically agree with Jonah re: the mozzarella sticks. I wouldn't really have noticed that they were pine-nut encrusted if the menu hadn't told me. It might have been more enjoyable treated as a pseudo-salad than actual mozzarella sticks.

One interesting thing about the menu was the large amount of vegan options. Neither of us ordered any of them, but they sounded like the best things on the menu apart from their vegan-ness. If any vegan readers are feeling adventurous you should at least check this place out (and tell us if it was good). For my main course I got a chicken pot pie, which is pretty much a staple of these mid-level comfort food places. It wasn't bad, though the plating (oh my god I can't believe I am complaining about plating) was kind of awkward. There was a puff pastry on top of a sort of souffle dish filled with the "pie," but when I tried to combine the two it all overflowed onto my plate, which had some kind of napkin on it. The pie itself was sort of your standard pot pie mush, with gnocchi in it and nice hearty chunks of chicken. It was a bit salty and I couldn't really tell what was in the mush (though I'm sure it's on the menu).

Ultimately I can't say I heartily recommend Wildfire, though there were definitely other options (both appetizers and entrees) on the menu that looked enticing. Neither of us tried their french fries, which are always an excellent litmus test of a restaurant. I wouldn't count Wildfire out, as new restaurants can always be a bit shaky and there were definitely the makings of something good there, though I do seem to be a sucker for repeatedly going back to restaurants that disappoint me.

Dining Hiatus

Both Tommy and I are back at college now so we won't be dining together for some months. We may have a few sporadic posts over the academic year as we will see each other over breaks and we enjoy eating. I think it's safe to say that ID will be in full force again next summer!

We appreciate your support!

Pancho Villa Mexican Restaurant & Bar Club

Tom: Neither of us had ever eaten at Pancho Villa's before, though I am pretty partial to Mexican food and figured despite the mostly negative things I had heard about it, I could get a pretty solid meal here. I had actually been been here once before, though it was somewhat of a harrowing experience. My mother and I were seated in about 95 degree heat, and the air conditioner in the restaurant was broken. There was some kind of large party in the room next to us, and our waitress said she'd be a while since she had to take care of their order. We ended up sitting there for about 10 minutes, before we finally went insane from heat stroke and decided to escape the restaurant through the back. Right at that moment, the waitress came back and asked us where we were going, so we kind of mumbled and continued leaving while the chef watched us through the window. Needless to say, PV's wasn't exactly high on my list of choice eateries after this.

(Seems like a bad sign to put in a parking lot)

But, Sam and I pressed on for the sake of food-bloggery. Also, we told Li we would meet him there. When we first pulled up to the restaurant, we noticed an orange gate with cinder blocks (one of them was broken, which is significant!) blocking the parking lot. Figuring it was under construction or something, we circled around the block and parked on the street. We had seen Li's car behind us and it had since disappeared, so we assumed he had done something similar.

After parking, we noticed that Li's car was in fact in the abandoned parking lot, and he had accidentally run over the gate without seeing it. The three of us cavorted nervously in the parking lot wondering what to do for a little bit until we went up to the restaurant and saw a great big real estate sign in the window.

(Not gonna lie, I was pretty happy that we didn't have to eat here)

Many restaurants are closing in Ithaca like the Lost Dog or the ABC Cafe, but I guess none of us were well acquainted enough with PV's to even know that it had closed. I don't really know when this happened, but it's too bad we never got to give it a fair shake.

Sam: Oh well! I was actually pretty happy that we didn't have to eat here. Between Tommy's experience, Li's experience and the various reviews on the internet it was a relief when we settled into one of the familiar booths at Chili's.

Sangams

Sam: With us this week were the always entertaining Li and Peter. We've dined with Li a fair share this summer seeing as how he has been in Ithaca working. Peter, on the other hand, has been busy traveling around the world so we were lucky to catch him for the few days that he was in town.

I'd been to Sangams several times before, usually for takeout, and have never been that disappointed. It's one of the only two places to get Indian food in ithaca (the other being Diamons down on green st) and honestly they're pretty similar. One of the only differences that I know of is that Sangams has a bigger selection of appetizers including Onion Bhujias and more pakoras.

(A terrible photo of our order or onion bhujias)

This meal was definitely the biggest we've had. We started with an order of the above which were great as always and also an order of veggie samosas, also good. Then we all ordered separate entrees trying to hit on each basic type they had (beef, chicken, seafood). Tommy got some shrimp dish, I got chicken tikka masala and Peter and Li both ordered things that I don't remember and am not willing to ask them about. We also got three types of bread, poori (my favorite and obviously the best), nan and chapati.

(Chicken tikka masala and Li's thing)

Tom: An interesting thing about Sangam's is that it is usually somewhat deserted, even for its pretty good lunch buffet (my Mom thinks it is a front for some kind of illicit organization). That being said, it's been in Collegetown for many years and people seem to generally like it. They probably make a lot of money from takeout or something. Its counterpart, Diamond's, is actually similarly quiet but persistent, so it must be an Ithaca Indian thing.

(Tommy's thing)

Sangam's is in the vein of Indian restaurants where you get an absurd amount of sauce compared to the meat you are given. I don't know if this is some kind of standard thing, but I have certainly had Indian meals where it was not an issue. This often leaves you scrambling around for bits of rice or scraps of bread at the end of a meal, because while the sauce to meat ratio is high, the sauce is usually completely delicious. Another hard thing at Indian restaurants can be ordering different types of bread. Some give you a lot more and are much easier to share than others, and some already have things in them that make them too filling to really use as pure sauce vessels. Luckily, all of us are hearty Indian takeout eaters and managed to keep it pretty basic.

(Peter's)

To help Sam out, I think Li got some kind of Lamb Curry and Peter got a vegetable based dish so as to not have everything be entirely meat. The standard Indian restaurant condiments were in the middle of the table, but I never use them even though I don't dislike them. To order as lavishly as we did at Sangam's isn't exactly cheap, though it obviously won't set you back that severely. A good bargain is possible, especially with the lunch buffet. But, you know what you are getting at Sangam's and the meal is always pretty solid all around, from the bread to the rice to the meats and veggies. It's really a great place to eat with friends as the food lends itself toward sharing and it is a nice calm environment. I'd heartily recommend Sangam's for anyone interested in Indian food, though most Ithacans have probably tried it out at some point. I will agree with Sam, however, that having any kind of serious preference between it and Diamond's is kind of silly.

Wegmans

Tom: Wegmans is probably the most important place to eat in Ithaca. If you're from here, you've definitely eaten here. Everyone I know comes down here pretty much religiously comes a few times a month to eat as well as use basically the best grocery store anyone's ever seen. I don't know exactly how far the Wegmans chain extends across the country (started in Rochester! Bleisenblog rules!), but I know when out-0f-towners have been to one it is as though we share a special bond.



Sam and I did not buy groceries on this outing, so for a review of that section you'll have to find a blog that is going to all the grocery stores in Ithaca (what a great idea!). Wegmans' extensive dining area features an Indian Bar, a Wokery, a Make Your Own Pasta Station (doubles as an Omelette Station!), a Sub Station, somewhere with Pizza and Wings, the "Fresh Foods Bar," and a Wings of Life Salad Station. Also Sushi and a Soup Bar. Former hits used to include the Carving Station and the Fish Fry Station (I've heard the FFS might still be there, but hidden?). There is also an incredibly impressive selection of drinks, and delicious candy bars and cookies are available, not to mention an entire spectacular grocery store. I'd say the premade to-go food is good enough to merit eating in the dining area.



Sam: It's true you guys, Wegmans is the greatest. I've had trouble in the past trying to describe wegmans to someone who has never eaten at one just how great it is to eat at this grocery store. I admit it does sound a bit strange (and depressing) if you imagine eating at a P+C or a Piggly Wiggly but Wegmans clearly is not just a grocery store.



Tommy mentioned the Carving Station which I still mourn. It was probably my favorite part of our wegmans though I am almost equally happy to eat some pasta or a sub. This trip however both of us opted for the cafeteria-style delights. Tommy got some fresh fruit, roasted peppers, chicken, carrots and potatoes I think and I got some terriaki veggies, soup and some Indian fry-bread.

(Tom's Meal)

(Sam's Meal)

Now if you decide to eat at wegmans you're not only faced with the decision of what you want to eat but also WHERE you want to eat. There is a small dining area directly to the right of the cafe entrance and there is also a much bigger dining area on the second floor. We always go upstairs, ALWAYS. From there you have access to the water/ice machine, a great view of the store and
also the wonderful automatic piano so it's a pretty easy decision.

There's not much more to say! If you live in Ithaca and haven't eaten there you're lying and if you're looking for a reason to come to Ithaca wegmans should be it! It's a great place to grab a quick bite to eat before a movie (terrific bulk section will save you cash on candy) or if you can't decide what you want. But beware the cafe lines can get a bit ridiculous when the students start to come back or on holiday weekends.

Wegmans was of course one of our regular dining spots before we started this project so we weren't too upset at having to eat here and we've actually dined here a few times between some of our featured adventures! It's too good not to.

Friendly's (Cayuga Mall)

(The exterior of the Friendly's at the Cayuga Mall)

Sam: Ithaca isn't a big city. Heck up to a few years ago you would often have to go online or drive up to an hour away to either Elmira or Syracuse if you wanted a book. Yet for some reason, we have always (in my lifetime) had three separate Friendly's. It's baffling, to say the least, why our city is plagued by this less than stellar chain but when we had to go we had to go.

(The roof is pretty enough)

Now when we used to be stumped over which restaurant to go to for dinner (the activity that spawned this blog) I would often suggest we go to the Friendly's on Rt 13, definitely the most depressing of the three locations in my opion. However when push came to shove and we actually had to dine at one we were both too upset to force ourselves to go to that one and instead opted for the one at the Cayuga Mall (which is less than 1/2 a mile from ANOTHER friendly's in the Pyramid mall) bring Annie, Tommy's sister, along with us once again.

(Pretty depressing you guys...)

We were able to pass sometime waiting to be seated by looking at the clock above. At first glance it looks like the '7' is just the '2' upside down but upon further examination you can see that in fact they are differnet. Pretty interesting stuff we've got going here. Anyway, we didn't have to wait for long before we were lead to a booth, had our drink orders taken and were left to peruse the menu.

(Menu AND specials menu)

Tom: This Friendly's was mostly full, like all of the ones in Ithaca are almost year round (again, baffling!). I ordered some kind of chicken smothered with cheese and mashed potatoes, while Sam opted for a 9.99 combo special with honey barbecue chicken wings and a sundae at the end. Annie only came for ice cream, so her role in this tale was yet to be played. I stayed away from any mango flavored drinks this time.

(I forgot to take photos before eating, hey I was hungry!)

I had said that ordering Jumbo Fronions was not necessary for me, as my chicken came on top of some Fronions. Apparently this is another chicken dish, and I was sorely disappointed when my chicken came out merely sitting on the plate (I do not blame the restaurant for this). Sam usually has this problem at Friendly's where they ask him if he wants honey mustard with his chicken, and he always says "no, just normal honey," and then they bring him honey mustard anyway. I imagine with the chicken this time having some kind of honey BBQ sauce already on it, there was less of a problem this time around.

(Tommy's meal, post eating as well)

For a chain family restaurant, we've always found Friendly's to have surprisingly slow service. Considering the relative speediness of contemporaries Applebees and Chili's, I've always found it shocking that Friendly's is so full, since the food isn't better, either. I guess it is somewhat cheaper? Sam got a pretty good deal, though you can probably get a bargain at the other places if you look.

(There was a bit of miscommunication because I definitely asked for peanut butter cups but got pieces instead... oh well)

We ate our respective chickens and then came time for ice cream, which has always been the most pleasant part of Friendly's. Sam I believe got some kind of 2-scoop sundae with mint and vanilla ice cream that came with his meal. Annie got the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup sundae with chocolate ice cream (an Eisenberg standard), and I got a RPBC Friend-z with chocolate ice cream, which is kind of like a McFlurry, but marketed only to children. Whenever I get Friendly's ice cream, and I think I speak for some other Eisenbergs when I say this, it is just a vessel to shovel as much of their peanut butter topping into my mouth as I can.

(Annie's sundae, what I was trying to emulate)

Overall, I'm not sure I can say I "recommend" Friendly's. If you live in Ithaca you've probably eaten there a few times, I don't know anyone that really loves it. It's good for ice cream if you're already in the mall or something, and if you're tired of going to other places you don't have to avoid eating at Friendly's. you can get a solid meal at any of the three (!) locations in Ithaca. I guess it's cheap, but it's not exactly the best deal in town.

(Tommy's Friend-Z, I like how that's spelled)

Sam: So yeah, overall not a great restaurant. We weren't surprised but we weren't THAT upset after eating. It's a fine option if you're trying to catch a movie and for some reason don't want to eat in the food court. I think we're gonna give Friendly's 6 Fribbles out of a possible 20 Fribbles.

Applebee's

Tom: Sam and I knew eventually we were gonna have to go to a restaurant that wasn't only local to Ithaca. When Applebee's came up on our potential list, we immediately seized the opportunity, since it is pretty close to our desired normal lunch anyway. Special guest Annie Eisenberg (my sister) accompanied us on this particular trip.

(Here goes nothin! We enter...)

Pre-blog, Applebee's didn't see a ton of action from us, since we regard it as distinctly inferior to Chili's, but not any cheaper and the fake "local" atmosphere is usually pretty annoying. They also always make us sit at this really high tables in the bar area, which is weird. This trip was no different in that regard, and we got to see such great signs as "If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes" up on the wall.

Sam: Every table in the restaurant, the ones not in the bar area as well, is adorned with a stain-glass lamp. To someone going into Appleebees for a quick meal they probably just seem like normal lights, heck, that's how they appeared to us at first. But few minutes after we were seated and we had basically looked at all of the great signs on the walls I looked up to see the following.

(eek!)

Yeah... So it was a little hard to relax with that above us. Especially when each one bore a freakishly accurate resemblance to each of us. A few deep breaths later we had all calmed down a little and were ready to try and salvage the meal and all was going pretty well till, Tom, our waiter showed up. Now there was absolutely nothing, probably, wrong with him but he did manage to creep us out more than, or about the same as the lamp.

(Waiter Tom suggested these right off the bat. Damn you and your professionalism.)

(These aren't your itunes-using grandparent's apps!)

We decided to order our meals right awayl skipping the "killer apps" in order to get out from under all of the horrifying stares as quickly as we could. Strangely enough we all ended up ordering some form of chicken salad which will make the photos of our meals really fun and interesting.

(My chicken salad)

(Annie's chicken salad)

(Tommy's chicken salad)

Like I said, fun and interesting. I'm not sure why we all ordered chicken salads but they were fine. Basically what you'd expect from a place like Applebees.

Tom: It was pretty interesting that Applebees even bothered to offer 3 different yet so similar chicken salads. I dunno if I can say mine was any better than the other 2, they looked like pretty much the same thing. One word of caution I have about Applebees is their flavored drinks. Last time I was there I got a "Mango fizzie" and it tasted completely awful. This time, I decided to get some mango lemonade, and it was only marginally better, certainly not worth getting. Perhaps the non-mango flavors are fine, I dunno, I'm dubious though.


I don't really think there is anything about the Ithaca Applebees that is particularly interesting among Applebeeses, but it's still a decent family chain restaurant. Their menu has improved a bit in recent years so if you haven't gone in a while and are the type who would eat at Applebees, try giving it a shot.

The Heights Cafe & Grill

Sam: From Wok Village to The Heights Cafe all in the same week! That's the kind of rollercoaster ride we like. I think it's important that we start this post with a big thank you to the Eisenbergs for making this restaurant trip possible. Thank you. Also, we agreed that it would be a little inappropriate for me to lug my gigantic DSLR into such a fancy establishment so we used a mixture of images from The Height's website our cellphones and stock photographs for the post. And with that, the review will begin!

Tom: The Heights Cafe is a regular favesie of ours, since it is literally 1-2 blocks from my house and consistently delicious. Since it is a bit upscale, it usually requires some kind of parent figure to be present, so my parents happily came along. We got a waiter who we had had previously, who had been quite enamored of Sam for going to IC and being involved in radio. He was similarly strange this time, often making loud jokes in response to anything we said.

A running joke in my family is that the list of ingredients for each dish at the Heights Cafe is endless. Everything is plated with some kind of potato, some kind of eggplant, and some kind of cheese (not literally). There was plenty of that to go around this time, but I found some of our dishes to be pleasantly simple compared to our past experiences.

Sam: We were also pleased to hear a pretty great muzak cover of Smash Mouth as we were going over the menu.

(sometimes people like their waiters)

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of dining at The Heights you should know that deciding to dine there is deciding what you're going to be doing for the majority of the evening. I wouldn't suggest planning a "dinner and a movie" date night with the heights in mind as eating there takes between 2-3 hours.

(a selection of breads with hummus and oil)

Dinner time meals always begin with the above. And all entrees are preceded by your choice of either a ceaser salad or a house salad. I'm pretty sure that we all opted, with the exception of Mr. E who ordered two appitizers as his entree, for the ceaser this time around.

We all ordered the following;

I got the Pan Roasted Chicken & Potato Gnocchi.


Tommy got the Brazilian Grilled Skirt Steak.



Mrs. E got some sort of fish, we think maybe trout?


And Mr . E ordered the Old School Meatball.Overall we were all pleased with what we got, at least I don't remember hearing anyone complain. The two senior E's also ordered a bottle of wine which can be seen below.

(Wineing it up yall)

And what better way to end this glorious meal than two chocolate lava cakes split 4 ways? I think that every time I've gone to the heights i've gotten a lava cake and I've got to say that this time it was the richest and most filling. Usually it's served with some fruit or cream (sometimes more chocolate sauce) but this time it had a scoop of the creamiest ice cream i've ever tasted. Not complaining, it was delicious.


I think this is probably the best meal that the two of us have had since starting this project and it's going to make going to places like Friendly's and The State Diner that much harder. Oh well... At least we have each other.