Michael M.
Yelp
The atmosphere was fantastic - to get to the restaurant, you walk through a corridor, by old brick buildings, into a central and well-decorated courtyard, where the outdoor patio resides. We were led inside and seated upstairs. The interior itself was very well decorated, but definitely whimsical - there was, for example, an unnervingly life-like cat statue perched on the window behind us. Sometimes I could swear I felt it staring at me.
The wine they featured was a red wine with blueberry elements, light bodied, with no finish. While I cannot evaluate wine to save my life, I had a man with me I consider an expert in the matter, and his summary of the wine was "pleasant initially, but dies too quickly and leaves you dis-satisfied". So much so that after sampling, we requested a different wine altogether. We concluded that they had an abundance of this wine and were trying to get rid of it fast, and I get that from a business perspective, but it makes for a poor dining experience and this nagged at me.
The food itself was very nice, though it gets major fail points on the presentation. We ordered the blue cheese steak with blue potatoes. We got an ideally cooked steak with a slab of blue cheese/butter (I'm still not sure) on top, and the potatoes hidden underneath the steak. Why? Presentation is about showing off your dish, not hiding half of it. The soup starter was very good, and the bread was nice and varied, but this nagged at me.
The service was never explicitly bad, but there were a few exchanges that had me lifting my eye-brows. The waitress seemed quite put-out when we asked for a different wine, for example, and several mannerisms in her body language had me wondering if she was frustrated with us. Given that we had given her minimal difficulty, that really isn't acceptable, and allows me to see how some of the poorer experiences mentioned by the others may have come to pass.
Perhaps it is an odd juxtaposition of the restaurant itself - offering a formal menu and atmosphere with casual food and staff. In some cases, like the wine and presentation, it felt like the person designing it just "didn't get" the fancy dining experience. If Chez Piggy turns up the quality of service and turns down the prices, then this could become a fantastic way for students to get introduced to formal dining in a non-threatening atmosphere.