The Pig & The Sprout

The Pig & The Sprout

Denver, Colorado

One of my best girlfriends text me yesterday and asked if I wanted to go to this restaurant with her this Friday. I am starting this review before I even step foot in the place. Any place that has both the word and picture of a pig in their name will be an automatic yes for me. 

I went to their website The Pig & The Sprout 

Great sign when a restaurant invests in web design. I read about their "vision" and in short they want to honor both the vegetarian and the carnivore hence the name. Casual dining of course and their menu is split in two. I can't tell if it looks like my Gemini sign or bi-polar disease. The menu is segregated so it is kind of weird. Meat menu items first, vegetarian menu items second, meat items 3rd, vegetarian items 4th, etc... I will not judge before my real life experience. Just for the record I am very excited to eat here. 

To be continued.....

We show up.

 It is 5:30 pm and they could only seat us around the bar area because upstairs was for people who made a reservation. We sat in the main area with the other common folks who didn't make a dinner reservation at 5:30 pm. We were there for 2 hours and the top floor was nowhere close to capacity. 

We order drinks.

I order the Kentucky mule and my friend ordered the Strawberry Fields cocktail. My mule was made with bourbon and her drink had  makers, strawberries, lemon, angostura bitters, and orange bitters. It was bitter AF and she liked it. 

Small plates versus Entrees:

Our very young and cute waiter tells us 85% of the customers order small plates. That is a huge percentage so we order 3 small plates and 1 entrée to share. Why did all dishes come out on the same size plates full of food? Then they give us two very very small plates to eat from. This is dumb. The restaurant is serving too much food on the "biggie smalls" plates at a low price point.  We basically ordered 4 entrees. 

Small Plates-

1. Brussel Sprouts- sunflower seeds, shaved parmesan, bacon, maple cider vinaigrette

2. Smoked Brisket Poutine- crispy fries, white cheddar cheese curds, asher amber gravy, scallions

3. Elote Mexican Street Corn- roasted corn, parmesan cheese, cumin, ancho chili, cilantro, lime

Entrée Plate-

1. Gnocchi- gnocchi, mushrooms, asparagus, umami butter, peas, shallot, garlic, parsley, shaved parmesan

The Review:

• The Brussel Sprouts were roasted which I love, but over cooked or re-cooked overcooked. The vinaigrette saved them. Other than that, nothing much to them. Good but underwhelming.
• The Poutine had small chips of beef brisket in the gravy; kind of looked like Alpo canned dog food. The fries were huge and not so crispy, the curds melted, and it was a hot soggy mess lacking meat. Despite the aesthetics we still ate it.
• I asked our waiter if the corn was served on or off the cob. He answered it was off the cob. The corn was not only off the cob, but it was taken off a long time ago in a factory, frozen, packaged, sold, and re-heated by this restaurant. It was dry and over seasoned with spices that wasn't cooked through. Tasting raw cumin and ancho chili in frozen corn is never a pleasant experience. For argument sake if the corn was not frozen then I am more concerned about how they prepared this. 
• The gnocchi was this place salvation. Best I have ever ordered and it taste like light pillows of deliciousness. The Umami butter was a bit salty, but it didn't kill the dish. 1 point for the Entrée! 

1 out of 4 are shitty odds. This place needs to try harder and do better. Care about the food! Just because the demographic can be bamboozled by a cool and hip environment doesn't mean you should get away with serving shitty but edible food. If I served this quality of food at a personal dinner party I would stop cooking. Hang up the apron. Chef Ed Kammerer @eddkamm, I haven't had everything on the menu, but if simple dishes don't make me excited to want to try the rest of the menu, what is the point? What is the point to serving this food to any customer?