PiDGiN has been on my list of restaurants to try out for a long time, so I was really glad to have the chance to check it out with M.
What we drank: Old Fashioned and a Zero Proof drink spiked with gin
M said that the Old Fashioned wasn’t very strong, and that the one at Cactus Club was better. My drink tasted like an alcoholic red bean soup which was awesome (but definitely not very strong).
What we ate: taramasalata, nori paste, mantou bread, egg yolk, mentaiko ($14.00)
This dish was a revelation. It was just so savory and the umami taste just blew me away. This dish basically has all my favourite ingredients mixed together in one glorious paste. The mantou was perfectly fried – light and fluffy.
What we ate: spring salad with torched mackerel and wasabi dressing
This was a special feature of the day and I’m so glad that we got this. If all vegetables tasted like this I’d eat them a whole lot more. All the greens used were super fresh and crisp. The mackerel didn’t have an overly fishy taste and the dressing didn’t overwhelm the dish.
What we ate: cultivated mushrooms, ramen egg, soy yuzu brown butter, celeriac puree ($14.00)
I love mushrooms so I loved this dish. I loved all the different mushrooms used and the nuttiness of the brown butter really complemented them. However, I couldn’t really taste the yuzu and that was one of the major draws for me, so that was a little disappointing. The ramen egg was perfect.
What we ate: potato “mentaiko udon”, spicy cod roe, nori butter, furikake ($12.00)
As you can probably tell already I love mentaiko, so this dish with its copious amounts of mentaiko was another winner for me. The shredded potato had no flavour on its own so it worked really well with the saltiness of the mentaiko and the richness of the butter.
What we ate: pork belly rice bowl, asian pear kimchi, bamboo, quail egg ($18.00)
Isn’t the quail egg so cute? This dish was extremely rich, but the pear kimchi helped to balance it out a little bit. This is not for the faint of heart. It’s carb heavy and definitely filled us up.
Would I come back? Yes! I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the food here! Nothing was too salty and everything was prepared with such care. Service was not intrusive at all (they pretty much let us do our own thing, but would check in on us but if they saw us talking they would just continue on their merry way).
