P.S. Restaurant: One of the better upscale eateries in Binghamton

I first heard about P.S. about 2 years ago and I haven’t gotten around to eating there until this past Thursday. One reason, that has deterred me from eating at P.S. is its horrific location. It is attached to a Giant supermarket off of vestal avenue. P.S. is an upscale restaurant that competes with Number 5 and the Kilmer in terms of clientele. The major issue that I have with P.S. is that their atmosphere is just too old for my taste. P.S. has a pastel carpet floor, a mirrored wall so you can spy on your neighbors and an awkward bar that is completely segregated from the rest of the restaurant. The windows all have curtains that block any view of the outside world from the customers. This is not surprising since the windows look out onto a parking lot where people are buying groceries and liquor. But P.S. has been owned by the same family for about 20 years and they have made a sustainable business in a location that is less than desirable.

This being said, the staff is excellent and the food is a notch up from anything else in the area. The bartender let us sample numerous wines, the maitre d' was pleasant and our waitress was extremely knowledgeable and personable. The menu is a mixture of French Continental food and Thai cuisine but there are very few fusion dishes. We started our meal with some raw blue point oysters, which were a special that night. They were very fresh and briny tasting as oysters should be. We decided to also have some Fois Gras to start with. From my experience this is the only restaurant that carries the wonderful duck/goose liver in Binghamton. The Fois Gras was made in a ginger, fig, lime and butter sauce that was very delicate and delicious. For dinner we had tuna steaks and roast duck. The Tuna was made with some crispy won-tons a mango pure, cilantro and a ginger cream sauce. They were cooked perfectly (rare) and were very tender. They married well with the mango but I thought the ginger cream sauce had a bit too much mayo for me. The duck was wonderful. Moist dark meat was surrounded by crispy duck skin that played with the berry sauce nicely. Both entrées were served with mashed potatoes and ratatouille. The potatoes were great, strained very finely to create a super smooth texture. But the ratatouille was a bit too acidic. We had a crème brulèe for dessert, the clustered part was nice and rich but the thin crispy layer at the top was soft and disappointing. I initially went to crack it open with my spoon only to have my utensil slide to the bottom of the ramekin. I am pretty sure they didn’t use a cooking torch, they probably just threw the dessert under the broiler…

Overall, the food was very good. You could tell that the chef really cared about what he/she was serving. One major issue that I have to address is the pricing discrepancy between the online menu and the in house menu. I am not one to nitpick on prices but almost everything online is $3-$5 cheaper than the in house menu. Clearly, they need to update their website.

Atmosphere: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Service: 5 out of 5 stars
Food: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars
Price Range: $20-$30
Website: P.S. Restaurant

Address: 100 Rano Blvd # 8
Vestal, NY 13850-2798
(607) 770-0056
Dinner Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 5:00 p.m.-Closing