The Greedy Pig
307 Cordova Street West, Vancouver, Canada
I had high hopes for this little bistro, tucked away in a little alcove in Gastown, Vancouver. The menu was minimal featuring only a handful of entrees, a small selection of share plates and some salads. The only thing was, there wasn’t anything on the menu that I wanted to eat. However, I did settle on the bangers and hash- seared sausage on top of mashed potatoes with a side of sweet potato and brussel sprout hash. We also ordered some toasted bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and the Ratatouille.
You can’t go wrong with Ratatouille especially with a thick blanket of melted cheese on top-melted, stretchy cheese will make anything taste good. That’s what saved this dish at The Greedy Pig. The cheese. Other than that, there wasn’t anything spectacular about the Ratatouille, just the run of the mill baked vegetable dish, nothing too flavourful, nothing too unique, and nothing too memorable. Ditto for the bread and the olive oil and balsamic we used for dipping. I give them points for presentation though, the long dish that the olive oil and balsamic was served in was definitely inducive to dipping; they definitely didn’t give us enough bread for such a huge plate of dip though. And lastly, disappointingly, the bangers and hash really didn’t hit the spot for me. I didn’t get that usual hearty satisfaction from a dish of such traditional and homey roots. At the risk of sounding like a complete greedy pig, the food portions are too small! I appreciate the bistro’s attempt at trying to be modern with the minimal menu and the highly stylized presentation of small food portions on square or rectangular plates (which by the way are totally unsuitable for the small cocktail tables inside The Greedy Pig; plates are round for a reason, especially in the case of limited table space), but the actual quality of the food doesn’t justify all of that.
The sausage in the bangers and hash was an appetizingly pink shade and a little mushy and to top it off, the mash underneath the sausage was just that, thin, grainy mash-not creamy, rich, stick-to-your-fork good ol’ mashed potatoes. Which is precisely why the portions should not be so tiny. The food just isn’t stellar enough for diners to be savouring each bite. I was actually still hungry after my meal. I’m not sure that I would return to The Greedy Pig. Maybe I’ll just stick to ordering cocktails and beer next time.