How we are (no longer) hungry. Le Pigeon.
Fear not, burgeoning readership, we haven’t been going foodless this week. We’ve been spending a lot of time cooking and taking advantage of the bounty of local produce as best we can (with sometimes disastrous results, but that’s another story). Friday night, we went out to what just might be our new favorite restaurant in town. It was so good, in fact, that we hit it up again Sunday for brunch.
Le Pigeon, we just might be in love with you.
Le Pigeon is nestled along a stretch of East Burnside once reserved exclusively for strip clubs and homeless encampments. Though both still take up some real estate, a short stretch of blocks starting at the Doug Fir and extending west is turning into a nice little place to walk around.
The restaurant itself strikes an awesome balance between being really warm, but still on the edge of cool. Big wood tables seemingly rescued from some Reedie’s dining room, matched with real silver flatware and your grandmother’s dishes bring a great sense of comfort, while the tattooed coolies at the bar and a proud display of Miller High Life show you how much this is could turn into a hipster haven.
The food is good. Really good. On Friday, we were three again. To start, green salads perfectly dressed with buttermilk dressing, tomatoes and avocado. Crisp and light, everything a salad should be. Also, with due reverence to our foodie brethren in Chicago, a thick sliver-dollar slice of Fois Gras served with grilled challah and peach compote. I was skeptical about the eggy challah competing with the rich fois, but the puffy texture set it off just right. I couldn’t bear to bury the flavor of the fois with the peach compote, so I savored it all on its own. And sadly, no convincing could get noneifbysea to take a bite of the livery goodness. He has no idea what he’s missing.
NIBS got The Burger, a thick patty of Strawberry Mountain beef topped with grafton chedder, grilled and pickled onions and tangy iceberg slaw on a ciabatta bun. And on the side, for a little extra he just had to have some of the duck fat potatoes. DUCK FAT POTATOES. The burger gods were smiling, and Portland officially has a new contender stepping into the ring for best burger.
Also on the table, the Strawberry Mountain flat iron steak served on a tumble of spinach sautéed with currents and Le Pigeon’s own house-made bacon. Steak was a little cold, but tasted great. Oh, and bleu cheese fried butter. And duck fat potatoes. This chef knows his way around fat, believe you me. Our third ordered the namesake Squab with, you guessed it, duck fat potatoes and marrow crostini. Just stop it already.
So far, so amazing. But then, there was dessert. There really isn’t a point in describing each one in detail. They were all flawless, so I’ll let their menu descriptions speak for themselves:
Apricot cornbread with Maple ice cream and bacon.
Dark chocolate sea-salt tart with mint pesto.
Grilled peach with goat cheese ice cream.
These are the best and most inventive desserts I’ve ever had. Anywhere. Ever. There, said it. Amazing, brilliant even.
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s one more thing to add to the list of Le Pigeon’s good deeds: the service. For me, servers are either invisible or totally irritating. It’s really rare to come across someone who puts a face and a personality to the restaurant, and on Friday night, the service we had did just that. For a minute, I wondered if someone in our party knew our server from before. He was just that warm and personable. (On Sunday, when our service wasn’t as stellar, I turned to noneifbysea to whisper, “I miss Brian.”)
It’s great. Simply great. The only only only thing we’d want to change is to switch out the insipid stemless glassware they’re using for white wines. There’s little in life we curse more than the designer of the Riedel “O” glasses.
Everyone seems to fit in there. It’s fantastically comfortable, whether you’re grabbing a burger before a show down the street or showing off the best of Portland food to your parents visiting from out of town. It’s really that good. Le Pigeon, we’re fans.
Le Pigeon, we just might be in love with you.
Le Pigeon is nestled along a stretch of East Burnside once reserved exclusively for strip clubs and homeless encampments. Though both still take up some real estate, a short stretch of blocks starting at the Doug Fir and extending west is turning into a nice little place to walk around.
The restaurant itself strikes an awesome balance between being really warm, but still on the edge of cool. Big wood tables seemingly rescued from some Reedie’s dining room, matched with real silver flatware and your grandmother’s dishes bring a great sense of comfort, while the tattooed coolies at the bar and a proud display of Miller High Life show you how much this is could turn into a hipster haven.
The food is good. Really good. On Friday, we were three again. To start, green salads perfectly dressed with buttermilk dressing, tomatoes and avocado. Crisp and light, everything a salad should be. Also, with due reverence to our foodie brethren in Chicago, a thick sliver-dollar slice of Fois Gras served with grilled challah and peach compote. I was skeptical about the eggy challah competing with the rich fois, but the puffy texture set it off just right. I couldn’t bear to bury the flavor of the fois with the peach compote, so I savored it all on its own. And sadly, no convincing could get noneifbysea to take a bite of the livery goodness. He has no idea what he’s missing.
NIBS got The Burger, a thick patty of Strawberry Mountain beef topped with grafton chedder, grilled and pickled onions and tangy iceberg slaw on a ciabatta bun. And on the side, for a little extra he just had to have some of the duck fat potatoes. DUCK FAT POTATOES. The burger gods were smiling, and Portland officially has a new contender stepping into the ring for best burger.
Also on the table, the Strawberry Mountain flat iron steak served on a tumble of spinach sautéed with currents and Le Pigeon’s own house-made bacon. Steak was a little cold, but tasted great. Oh, and bleu cheese fried butter. And duck fat potatoes. This chef knows his way around fat, believe you me. Our third ordered the namesake Squab with, you guessed it, duck fat potatoes and marrow crostini. Just stop it already.
So far, so amazing. But then, there was dessert. There really isn’t a point in describing each one in detail. They were all flawless, so I’ll let their menu descriptions speak for themselves:
Apricot cornbread with Maple ice cream and bacon.
Dark chocolate sea-salt tart with mint pesto.
Grilled peach with goat cheese ice cream.
These are the best and most inventive desserts I’ve ever had. Anywhere. Ever. There, said it. Amazing, brilliant even.
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s one more thing to add to the list of Le Pigeon’s good deeds: the service. For me, servers are either invisible or totally irritating. It’s really rare to come across someone who puts a face and a personality to the restaurant, and on Friday night, the service we had did just that. For a minute, I wondered if someone in our party knew our server from before. He was just that warm and personable. (On Sunday, when our service wasn’t as stellar, I turned to noneifbysea to whisper, “I miss Brian.”)
It’s great. Simply great. The only only only thing we’d want to change is to switch out the insipid stemless glassware they’re using for white wines. There’s little in life we curse more than the designer of the Riedel “O” glasses.
Everyone seems to fit in there. It’s fantastically comfortable, whether you’re grabbing a burger before a show down the street or showing off the best of Portland food to your parents visiting from out of town. It’s really that good. Le Pigeon, we’re fans.
- Food: Fantastic, inventive, perfectly executed, really exciting.
- Drinks: Winelist, per NIBS "short but interesting, worldly- france, italy spain." Seems the French name of the place threw him off.
- Atmosphere: Comfortable and warm, friendly, but with a cool vibe. Exclusive to no one.
- Strikes: stemless glassware. that's it.
- Tally: NIBS is claiming it, and I'm not sure why he gets to. I swear I brought it up first. n
posted by canolive at 12:16 PM
1 Comments:
I had been wanting to try the pigeon for quite some time and finally had the opportunity last week. My best characterization of this place would be ghetto fabulous. Ghetto in the sense that overhead the speakers were bumping Mims "This is why i'm hot" and fabulous because of the fine china,
silverware, and top of the line copper kitchen. This aspect of it I liked, but the food, definitely not. This is the place to go if you want to spend lots of money for a heartburn and have the privilege to be in the presence of the chef.
- megan@meganfabulous.com
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