When I decided to go to Portland, I sought some feedback on where I should eat. I usually do extensive research on my own, but I asked others for help this time. Drew Lazor from the city paper told me that Le Pigeon was a must eat. I actually remembered seeing it the last time I was in Portland, as I was staying at a crappy motel right across from it, so I heeded his advice and made a reservations. It’s a tiny spot with only 3 family style dining tables (be prepared to sit next to strangers!!!) and seats at the kitchen bar. So plan your visit in advance!

It is french! Could you guess that from le name? The menu is small, changes all the time, and is very french. You don’t see friendly things like chicken and steak and sea bass.  You see things like pigs feet, tongue, duck, and sweetbreads. So be forewarned! It had tons of decorations and art, including embroideries of employees on the walls. The dessert and cheese menus were written on these colorful old windowpanes.

The swordfish dish. A nice steak of swordfish with calamari stew, fingerling potatoes, and a saffron based sauce. Lovely and beautiful!

I went wild and got the sweetbreads with scallop, salsify, and citrus. Now I’ve only eaten sweetbreads once, and liked it, and I love me some scallops, so I decided to take the chance! I still really don’t know what particular type of sweetbread this was, but I’m assuming it was the pancreas kind, as it was pretty big. I liked this, but I could easily see how some would not. While it doesn’t have a terrible texture, it doesn’t have the greatest texture either. It’s kind of on its way to having a liver texture, but only about half way there. It was seared and I enjoyed the seared bits quite a lot. However, once I ate away at the seared bits, the inside was less cooked, and I got a bit afraid and stayed away from it. I think the last time I had sweetbreads it was cut up into much smaller pieces so there weren’t any less cooked bits. I think I would have preferred it that way. That was fine as I still had a lovely and big seared scallop to enjoy. You know me and scallops, so enjoy it I did! The salsify is a root vegetable. It’s not widely eaten, but it is in France, Italy, and Russia. I’ll leave it to the French, Italians, and the Russians. Salsify is definitely not the root vegetable for me. Now as strange as it may sound, my favorite part of this dish was what all the main ingredients came on top of – cauliflower puree. It tasted like pure cauliflower, but it was incredibly smooth and lump free, liquidy, but still with some oomph. I could eat this all day!

Now dessert is where we got completely crazy. While there were many options, some of them even crazier, nothing enticed us as much as the honey bacon apricot cornbread with maple ice cream, drizzled with bacon cooked in maple syrup. Yes folks, this cornbread has bits of bacon in it. And it’s topped with more bacon. And as crazy as it sounds, it was delicious! But the maple ice cream is actually what made it. Without it, the cornbread tastes a little too funny and smoky. But with the ice cream, it’s the perfect complement. It’s all the bizarre combinations of savory and sweet that make it so fun to eat. We laughed the whole time we ate this, because really, we couldn’t really believe we were!

Service was good and they were very friendly and helpful with explaining the menu. It’s a packed restaurant, with just a few people cooking, and everything is cooked to order, so be prepared to wait for your food. Just enjoy the complimentary bread they give you. They sprinkle a little sea salt on the butter and it makes it even that much better. We sat next to a really nice couple who recommended several places to try out, in Portland and elsewhere. And we provided them with some recommendations for spots to check out in random parts of the country. And hence, the beauty of family style sitting amongst strangers. Le Pigeon is a special experience. I hope you all get to experience it. And say yes to the crazy bacon dessert!

M invited me over again for an event meal – raclette! Have you ever had raclette? This was my second time ever. It’s primarily a Swiss thing, and it is a type of cheese itself as well as the type of dish. Confused yet? The cheese is called raclette and the device you cook it on is also called raclette. Ok, so here’s what happens. There’s a grill on top of the raclette, and you can put anything on it… meats, veggies, whatever.  Then underneath, there are little individual trays where you melt cheese. Finally, you cook up some potatoes and you eat the potatoes, topped with cheese, topped with whatever! Sometimes, it’s fun to cook your own food! We have a veritable smorgasbord of racletting options… mushrooms with cheese and mango with panchetta. We had plain panchetta too.

Also, shrimp skewers!

And eggplant skewers stuffed with pesto.

Seafood sausage from trader joe’s! This was one of my faves…

M cooked up some delicious tri-colored potatoes for the raclette. The purples ones were my favorite!

Here’s the raclette with all the stuff on the grill. The little tray underneath is where you melt your cheese. The beauty of raclette is that you can pretty much do whatever you want. Your fixins can be anything, and you can use any type of cheese. Sure, raclette cheese is a good choice, but really, anything that melts well will work. And aside from the versatility, it’s just a fun way to eat with friends! Try it!

With Restaurant Week going on, there were several other restaurants that were having special deals. One of these happened to be London Grill. To thank frequent diners, they offered a special $18.95 Meal Deal of fresh maine lobster or filet of beef. This seemed like such a deal! Lobster or Filet for $18.95? Well, it didn’t quite live up to what they made it out to be.

I had gotten an email announcing the deal and it promised fresh maine lobster or filet of beef. When we got there, the little menu card now said fresh maine half lobster or filet of beef. That was fallacy number one. Well fine, we decided to go for it anyway. It mentioned nothing about how it was prepared, but we envisioned half a lobster sitting on a plate with some veggies. Well, first we got some complimentary mushrooms and bread. For someone who’s not that into mushrooms, these were surprisingly tasty! And the bread was a focaccia, also tasty. We got a house salad, which was just fine. No choice of dressing or anything, you just get what they give you. R wanted a caesar salad and they brought her out a caesar one, without any additional charge. That was pretty cool of them.

When we got the fresh maine half lobster, we actually got a bowl with whole wheat spaghetti, topped with a lobster claw, with some additional lobster meat thrown into it. Not at all what we expected. It tasted fine, but we didn’t expect a spaghetti dinner. We expected a lobster dinner. The spaghetti was also extremely garlicky and slightly spicy, which I didn’t mind, but others may. I don’t know about you, but when I envision lobster dinner, a bowl of spaghetti ain’t it.

For dessert, it was chocolate mousse. For someone who’s not all that into chocolate or mousse, I still liked this a lot. So kudos on the chocolate mousse. But no kudos for the fact that I came here to get a particular drink and they didn’t have the beer it that was required to make it. If you put a drink on the menu, then make sure you have all the components with which to make it. 99% of the reasons I even went to London Grill was to get this drink, and they didn’t even have it. Fallacy number 2.

The service… oh, the service. Our server tried, she really did, but she just wasn’t very good. She wasn’t good at explaining, she wasn’t good at imparting information, she just wasn’t very good at being a server. I suggest she look into another line of work.

At the end of the day, the meal was fine, and for getting three courses, it is a deal, but it’s not one that I could recommend. They don’t quite tell you what the deal is, and that’s how they sucker you in. They promise lobster and give you mostly lobster bits. So I’m going to have to say skip it!