Lost Dog Café & Lounge — Restaurant in City of Binghamton

I always thought Lost Dog was the first "cool" place in Binghamton... there's plenty of good stuff now, but Lost Dog still holds up. My friends always rave about the Rigatoni a la Vodka, and it's true that it's really good, but everything I've tried has been equally delicious. I'm not usually someone to go for salads at restaurants but oddly enough the salad dressings here really stand out to me. Their menu isn't overly "adventurous" but it's not just standard bar food and it has character. The desserts are interesting too! Also I love that they make French cream sodas, one of my favourite drinks. I think the style of the decoration would be best described as funky, but it's not one of those places that has too much going on, and the vibe is great. They have a sidewalk patio too, but I often seem to have some sort of trouble with it. Sometimes it's not open when you expect it to be on a nice day, and I feel like they give kind of a condescending response when we ask if we can sit outside. One time they sat us outside at one of the tables with no umbrellas (some of the picnic tables had umbrellas, some didn't), and we asked if we could move to an empty umbrella table because it was sunny, but they said we couldn't because only a certain section of the patio was open. Then we asked if we or they could move the umbrella to our table, also no. I know they have a system to follow but I don't understand how it would have been that much trouble to move us to a table not very far away from the last open table. In this situation I also felt like the waiter acted exasperated with us when we tried to ask politely and just wanted to keep the sun off. Otherwise I've never had issues with the staff and they're mostly friendly while they're serving us, they just seem to get weird about the patio for some reason. When the patio is "closed", you can order takeout and eat it at one of their...

This place was recommended to us by a close family member. They had been here quite a few times and really enjoyed it.

We came with a party of 8 since we just had an event earlier that day. We were able to make a reservation which not many places do nowadays, which we greatly appreciated.

The atmosphere in this place is amazing. I love all the different types of colors they have going on. They got giant lanterns above the bar, hanging balls above the celling and an array of colored curtains on the windows. It’s truly a magical place.

As for the service, the waitresses were amazing. Ours was super kind and understanding and took very good care of us. I also went into the store to grab a shirt since I don’t live in the area and I don’t know when I’ll be back. The girl at the counter was super nice. Even though she sounded new, she was doing a fantastic job!

Now as for the food. I got the signature dish, the penne Al a vodka (the old school version which adds a bit of spice to it). I decided go add a side Caesar salad, which was very good. The niña dish was absolutely amazing! Better than most pastas I’ve had out before. The vodka sauce was truly amazing and full of flavor. My family also got the prime rib Mac and cheese, the burger and the Greek chicken. All of them were super good! And of course, we all had to get dessert. So we got a mixture of the peanut butter pie, the fried cheesecake bites and the banana ice cream dish. All of the desserts were super good as well.

Suffice to say, if I’m ever in the area again and looking for a place to eat, I will definitely be...

Five stars for our great waitress Michele, she was on the ball and worked her tail off, three stars for the value, except for the martinis at the bar which were overpriced for the size (beer was good value though), but unfortunately 1 star for the food. Menu items sound great but something went wrong in the kitchen on our visit. Fried Dumplings were a good start but asparagus cakes seemed to be all breadcrumbs and filler, don't think I saw any asparagus in them. Tasted ok though. Entrees were a problem. My wife ordered a special which was supposed to be chicken satay. What she got though was vegetable curry with a piece of chicken on top. No satay to be found. She liked it but it wasn't what she was expecting or ordered. Big difference between satay and curry. My entree was horrible. Cuban black beans, broccoli and spinach, and I added a piece of cajun chicken on top for an extra 4 bucks. Chicken was most although a very small portion. But the rest? For some reason the entire dish was buried in parsley. Buried. My wife thought maybe to hide the excessive garlic. It was supposed to be tossed with olive oil, but instead was in some kind of watery broth. I've never had any dish with parsley being an overwhelming main ingredient, especially when parsley was not even on the menu description. I ate about half of the meal because I was hungry, not really realizing how off it was. But I was then up all night tasting parsley, until lunch the next day. Unfortunately probably won't be back because it seems like a cool place - but can't trust the menu descriptions and...