Pigalle

Effectivement, au début, c'était un peu le bordel. It was strange. We had reservations, and there were plenty of empty tables; but, we still had to wait for about ten minutes to be seated. The restaurant was surprisingly small, and the first thing we noticed when we sat down was how cramped it was. (This having been our first time, we aren't sure whether it's always like this or whether this was in response to a large Restaurant Week crowd.) Then, it took our waiter another ten minutes to come to our table and bring us the menus. We were perplexed--and hungry!

Anyway, we finally get menus and ordered. We were really impressed with the amount of selections on Pigalle's Restaurant Week menu. We chose as follows:

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Entrée: Arugula Salad with Crispy Bacon, Parmesan Cheese, and Fingerling Potato Chips. My salad was good. The arugula and its dressing were really nice. The Parmesan was shaved in nice-sized pieces and were a nice addition. The most fun part were the fingerling potato chips, which were house-made and shaved paper thin before being fried. The "crispy bacon" was not crispy. Plus it was on the bottom, which made it difficult to reach without making a mess. I think the bacon would have worked more nicely as lardons. In all, though, this was a very nice starter.

Main: Double Thick Grilled Pork Chop with Mustard Sauce, Herb Spätzle, Peas, and Carrots. The pork chop was very tasty. The tarragon spätzle was mixed together with the peas, and carrots, and this served as a bed for the pork. I thought the dish was successful. Nothing too fancy, but it was novel, delicious, and comforting.

Dessert: Stone Fruit and Rhubarb Cobbler with Vanilla Ice Cream. Yummy! I'm from the South, and I love peach cobbler. I haven't been home during peach season this year, so it was nice to finally get some. As the name indicates, peaches were not the only fruit in the cobbler. There were--at least--also nectarines, which don't cook down as quickly as the peaches, and therefore were more firm and still in intact. I don't know whether there were any other stone fruits in there, though. Of course the rhubarb was a nice addition. Now I know what I'm gonna do with some of that rhubarb in my garden that's calling to me! Oh...this was topped with some vanilla ice cream that was also delicious.


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Entrée: Shortrib Arancini (not on the aforementioned menu, as it has changed slightly since publication). You already know how much we love arancini. These were really interesting. They were filled with shortrib meat, which was amazingly flavorful. There was a spice we weren't quite sure of--and it tasted . I thought it might have been Chinese Five Spice, but that's merely a guess.

Main: Pigalle's Steak Frites with Creamed Spinach.
I think they must have bought a tarragon farm because it was everywhere.

Dessert: Stone Fruit and Rhubarb Cobbler with Vanilla Ice Cream. See above. We got the same dessert. P liked his too...especially the ice cream.

Once again, we didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of the food due to the close quarters; and, it was dark, anyway, so they wouldn't have turned out.

We are happy to have finally gone to Pigalle. While the food lived up to our expectations, the service and atmosphere did not. Next time, we'll try to sit outside.