Really enjoyed the Pidgin box last night - 3 proper courses plus a canapé and petit four.
Canapé was a slice of game sausage roll with cherry mustard. The sausage roll was absolutely divine, meaty and gamey, and to me was better without the mustard (nice though that was). If greggs sold these I'd buy them by the dozen.
Starter was smoked jerusalem artichoke soup with caviar creme fraiche and artichoke crisps. Lovely artichoke flavour and well balanced in terms of texture and flavour (the sourness of the creme fraiche worked well)
Main was an absolutely huge lamb shank in a szechuan jus with Chinese turnip cakes, broccoli in chilli & garlic dressing and Chinese wind sausage crumb. The lamb itself was fantastic quality with a deep, almost mutton like flavour. I did wonder from the size and depth of flavour if it was actually hogget. The accompaniments went really well and overall the dish wasn't too heavy or rich.
Dessert was the one course that was only OK - a deconstructed key lime pie. Nice flavours (orange, lime, cream), quite fresh with the orange segments
and not too sweet, but just a bit airy and ultimately not as good as a slice of key lime pie (for the record
@Steve Slatcher makes a very good one)
Finally a single piece of white chocolate fudge coated in beetroot glaze was delicious with an espresso.
Wine wise I went with small bottles matched to each course:
First bottle of Bolly was badly corked so I replaced it like for like from the cellar. Coddington was really superb - rich and toasty, a very good match to the smoked artichokes. Claret was absolutely lovely - textbook fragrant Margaux, light and feminine. I've had a few good 07s recently, they are hitting theur stride now I think. Icewine was, surprisingly, both our WOTN - a Lidl spesh, but just lovely balance between richness, sweetness and acidity. Classy stuff and much better than the Vidal or Cabernet versions from the same producer.
In summary I'd definitely recommend Pidgin to anyone and would order again myself without hesitation.