A new, second location for an old standby

These are takeout places. The original Harrows once had a restaurant, but about a decade ago, the owners decided to focus on takeout. The Medford spot, which opened last fall, also has only food to go.

Harrows prides itself on old-fashioned cooking, making the gravy from scratch and cooking the chicken slowly overnight. One disappointment is that these pot pies are the single-crust variety, with only a pastry layer across the top, and none along the bottom. But beyond that, this is comfort food - large chunks of white-meat chicken, carrots, and potatoes suspended in a thick gravy. The pies come in four sizes, from a serving for one ($5.25) to a rectangular, six-serving pan ($19.25). Portions are generous; we had large amounts of leftovers. For a little extra money - and we’re not sure why anyone would choose this - you can also order a pie with only chicken, no vegetables.

The stars of this show are the chicken pies, but Harrows also makes sides and desserts. Mashed potatoes ($3.50 a pint) are creamy but quite bland. Perhaps they were made to be served with the chicken gravy ($3.50 a pint), which was all gone by the time we picked up our dinner toward the end of the day. Squash ($4.25) is very good, letting the vegetable’s natural flavor shine. The rolls ($3.95 per dozen, $2.10 for six), standard dinner rolls, are great warmed with the pot pie.

At home, these pies need to be heated up in the oven, although if you’d like your pie already hot, call an hour and a half before you arrive and it will be ready to eat. The night we picked up our pot pie, we hadn’t thought ahead to request a warm pie, but we were in luck - the store happened to have one ready. The pot pies also are available frozen at the stores, and Harrows recently started selling frozen versions of their pies - with a slightly different recipe - in some grocery stores, including Crosby’s Marketplace and some local Market Baskets. At Thanksgiving, it has roasted turkeys that can be heated up at home.

For dessert, Harrows offers two kinds of sweet pies: blueberry ($6.75 for an 8-inch pie, $10 for a 10-inch) and apple ($5.75, $9). The blueberry was thick and sweet, perfect served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Kathleen Burge