Sunday Brunch at the Ponderosa in Binghamton, NY

In our never ending quest for a good weekend brunch, my fiancé and I decided to try the Ponderosa located on Upper Front St. in Binghamton. If you have ever been to a Sizzler, this place was reminiscent of it, from the menu on the wall as you walk in and the hostess taking orders for drinks and meals at the front desk.

As we were there to try the Sunday brunch, I ordered coffee and my partner an apple juice and paid for our drinks and our two brunches. We had a coupon (buy one brunch, get one free with purchase of 2 drinks), our bill came out to be about $15.00 (with tip). Sunday brunch normally costs about $10 per person. The atmosphere was very casual with booths and tables occupying its cafeteria like room, similar to any diner or Denny's.

As the name states, the Ponderosa Steakhouse offers a variety of steaks to choose from: chopped steak, top sirloin, ribeye, NY Strip, sirloin tips as well as chicken items including chicken Monterey and grilled chicken. In addition to the seafood entrees such as fried shrimp, seafood platter and grilled salmon, you can order combination meals such as the sirloin and fried or grilled shrimp or the sirloin and chicken for those who like a lot of meat. The Ponderosa offers Seafood Buffets, Lunch Buffets and Dinner Buffets with a variety of specials depending on the day and the current promotional offer.

There is a daily buffet included with your purchase of entrée including salad items, mashed potatoes, soups, chili, breads, vegetables, macaroni and cheese, taco items. In addition to finding these items available at the Sunday brunch, we also found fried chicken, eggs, bacon, ham, sausage patties, cinnamon rolls, biscuits, sausage gravy, omelettes to order, corn beef hash, waffles, pancakes, fruit, mini bagels and some type of egg and pepper dish. The Ponderosa Steakhouse boasts over 100 items on their Sunday brunch buffet. I suppose if you count all the smaller items such as syrup, salad toppings and fruit, this could have been possible.

We stayed away from the limp and disfigured looking mini waffles and pancakes and attempted to try the eggs, bacon, corn beef hash (for me), biscuit and sausage gravy on the first trip. My fiancé commented that the eggs had a strange after taste and stopped eating them after the first bite or two. I tried a few bites and agreed with him. The biscuit was cool to the touch and after asking our waiter (who was very kind and attentive) to locate us some butter (we could not find it but realized it was with the salad items as we watched him get us some from the salad bar) we tried the biscuit with some butter. Not your homemade variety. I then dipped the biscuit into the watery and grey looking sausage gravy and declared that I was sorry I did. My fiancé refused to try it even for the sake of taste testing. I also tried a blueberry cobbler of sorts which was nothing more than the biscuit topped with some blueberries and sauce. No more impressive than the regular biscuit. The bacon was crisp and along with the corn beef hash, they were the best items on the menu. My fiancé decided however that the bacon had an aftertaste to it as well and declined eating the rest of his portion.

We decided to give a go at a made to order omelet. We were asked to select our toppings and place them in a bowl and to leave them with the omelet maker who informed us that he has had "better days" and looked as if making us an omelet was the last thing he wanted to be doing. We each selected our fillings (sautéed onions, bacon and cheese for me) and bacon and cheese for my fiancée. The omelets were delivered to our table in about 7 minutes and appeared hot and browned (although my dining partner's omelet looked more black than golden brown). The omelet was more palatable than the eggs were but my partner had lost his appetite for eggs after the first two bites and still having the aftertaste of the scrambled eggs (which I assume is from the powder used to make the eggs), declared he was done with breakfast. I ate about ¾ of mine until the aftertaste of the sautéed onion did me in, reminding me of how a hot dog with fried onions tastes.

I however just "had" to try the mashed potatoes and fried chicken leg which had just come out onto the buffet. The mashed potatoes were creamy and had a buttery flavor to it-your ordinary instant potato and the fried chicken coating was spicy and reminiscent of KFC chicken which was good. Not caring for leg meat, I stopped after only eating the crust, but the chicken appeared juicy and hot on the inside.

After two refills of coffee (which our waiter was very attentive to) and three trips to sample a variety of foods, none of which were completely eaten, we both decided that we had had enough of our Sunday brunch and we were glad we had used our coupon.