Pidgin: Hipster Asian fusion in Gastown
We treated ourselves to a fancy dinner at Pidgin to celebrate our #100days (I know, we are cringey but hey we like a reason to eat good food).
Pidgin is an Asian and French fusion restaurant located in Gastown. It has a medium-sized space with wooden accents and lots of candles. Table seatings were close to each other but still intimate and a very warm and cozy atmosphere welcomes you when you come in. The waiting area is quite small near the doorway so I wouldn’t recommend coming too early.
We both ordered an appetizer and a main and then a shared dessert. The dessert menu was not disclosed until after we finished our mains.
Appetizers
For our appetizers, we ordered the beef tartare ($16) and the fried duck wings ($13).
The beef tartare came with some spicy wonton bits, which were an interesting pairing to the beef tartare. After eating a bit, we found the wontons to be a bit too spicy for us, but still yummy.
The fried duck wings didn’t arrive until after our mains. In fact it took so long that we ate it right away and I didn’t even snap a photo of it. It was sour & salty & slightly spicy, but didn’t taste too different from chicken wings with less meat.
Entrees
For our mains we ordered the udon vongole ($16) and the beef bavette ($32).
The udon vongole came with clams and a butter-based white sauce on the bottom. We found the dish to be quite homey but not worth $16, especially when we make udon at home quite often. Choosing udon as the noodles made it less fancy and more common.
The beef bavette was a taste I hadn’t tried before. The beef tasted like chocolate, believe it or not. It was sweet and tender and paired very nicely with the baby tomatoes.
Dessert
For dessert, we shared a panna cotta ($8). It was pretty average, topped with blueberries, a crisp and strawberry sauce.
Final thoughts
In general, Pidgin had a very romantic feel but the food took way to long. From sitting down at our table to paying, we spent at least 3 hours, probably more. The wait time between each course was at least 20 minutes, and it got to the point where we ordered dessert when our main dish arrived because we didn’t want it to take any longer. Again, the duck wings came late, right before our dessert. Not sure if they forgot about it or if there was some sort of a backlog in the kitchen. We had already finished our drinks before the first appetizer was presented to us.
The servers were nice and helpful, but the long time it took to get our food slightly dampened our mood. Because of that, I would definitely recommend you to not be in a rush if you’re planning on trying pidgin and if you don’t have a reservation, chances are you won’t be eating if you get there at 7 or 8 pm, as there are no “2 rounds” of dinner. Seems like they only have one dinner slot if each party takes 3 hours.
Our total came to around $102 including food and drinks, but excluding tax and tip.