HG Bistro — Restaurant in Puyallup

Pleasant space with an enthusiastic server and well conceived but unevenly executed food. The interior is simply and pleasantly decorated but dark, with tan stucco walls, white trim and pillars, exposed beams and ductwork and a brown faux stone floor. Candles on the table and lights behind large inverted domes of brownish glass suspended six feet above the tables barely give enough light to read the menu. There is dark corrugated soundcatching tile of some sort on the walls and ceiling which damps the noise, making the space lovely for conversation around the table. The waitress was pleasant, very young and not given to much description of the food beyond "it's very good", although she did ask the kitchen staff when I had questions she could not answer. She got to me pretty quickly, but it was about 15 minutes between when I arrived and when the first food appeared on the table. Bread was very good -- chewy, crusty, slightly and pleasantly sour, and warm; it was served with balsamic vinegar, oil and mashed garlic. I had crabcakes for an appetizer, which was a mistake. Anyone who has spent much time within 10 miles of the Chesapeake tends to be fussy about crabcakes, I suppose, and I am no exception. These appeared to be made with canned crab of modest quality, shredded finely, overly salty, with no large chunks and a mushy interior texture, though they were browned nicely on the outside. They were served with a pleasant pepper aioli and nicely garnished with brocolli sprouts. For dinner I had pork cheek with a wild mushroom risotto, which could have been excellent. The pork and mushroom flavors complemented each other extremely well, and I like but hate to make risotto, so this was a welcome companion. Like the crabcakes, the pork was heavily salted and perhaps worse, the salting appeared to be uneven, so there were intense bites of salt which no other flavor penetrated. The least salty areas, which the pork and mushroom flavors dominated, were very tasty. There was no vegetable side dish with the entree. I had the wine recommended by the menu to accompany this dish, which was an uninspired Washington pinot noir. For dessert I had three scoops of ice cream, not made by the restaurant but under contract to it. The pear ice cream was really good, the habanero chocolate ice cream was an interesting idea but with less intense flavors than you would expect, and the salt caramel was not much of either. They're making a good effort here, the chef has good ideas and I'd like to see this place improve, but right now for $55 I found this the least impressive meal I've had in my trip...

My wife and I went for the first time the other night to give my wife a nice dinner for her birthday. I had read lots of reviews mostly good and a few very bad ones too. I know that in business you can never please them all. We went a little early on this Saturday night to avoid the rush. We were greeted pleasantly and ask where we wanted to be seated and I replied the dinning room. We were seated at a small table for two next to the kitchen. Not sure since we did not have reservations if this is the best we could get ? Wait staff was quick to get us going with water, bread, drinks and menus. We ordered Lamb, seafood fettuccine, a house salad, fried zucchini. We ate the bread all bit one piece that was overly crisp. We were asked several times if we wanted more bread as we waited for our dinners to come. I thought this was very nice but we did not want to get over filled on the delicious bread before dinner arrived. The dinners came after a short wait and the food tasted very good to both of us. The presentation of both dinners looked good also. We were asked if we needed anything else and I ordered another drink which came fairly fast. We were left alone to eat our dinners which was nice because I don't like getting over attention during a nice dinner. The place had filled up as expected and was keeping the staff busy. We ordered one desert the Smores and it was obvious after waiting for quite some time that the kitchen was over whelmed with orders. I am typically never in a hurry with a dinner like this and I was full myself and the dessert was for my wife who is also patient. The wait staff apologized for the wait and said it would be coming out soon. It took some more time and you could see the staff was very busy. Finally a manager came buy and said that she wanted to comp the dessert because it was taking too long. Soon after that it came out and it was delicious. All and all it was a good experience. It was interesting to see that once the place gets busy the wait times greatly increase which was the number one complaint among the bad reviews. I think I will always avoid peek times at this restaurant which I did but at the end of it all they had gotten busy and the last thing the dessert was held up. I think the staff handled it well however and I am giving it four stars. The food was good service was good and I will go back for sure.They also were pleasant when we we leaving and wished us a good evening. I just don't hand out five stars easily but defiantly recommend...

It is difficult to find an aspect of this restaurant that I enjoyed, unless we caught them on a fluke day I cannot see why anyone would ever go back a second time and I'd recommend avoiding the first at all. It looks very nice from the road, and the inside isn't half bad either. The lighting is a bit dim for afternoon dining for my tastes, but overall the atmosphere was alright. Now for the food. For an appetizer we got the Cilantro Chicken Gyoza, what came out looked nothing like any gyoza I have ever had. Quarter sized fried dumplings in irregular shapes filled with a fairly tasteless filling, drizzled with what I believe was an attempt at a cilantro dressing, but there was not enough of it to cover the gyoza and the undressed "slaw" beneath it. In the middle was a pile of what looked and tasted a lot like incredibly spicy Taco Bell ground beef. Every bite was confusing and disappointing, and the only thing that added much for flavor was the slice of lime on top. Hoping that was a fluke we continued onto our entrees. The fries were the only good thing about that, and they were desperately lacking in salt/seasoning. I had the Bacon Jam Burger, which didn't have enough bacon to be able to taste, and was definitely not the medium I had asked for. My fiance had the french dip, and felt the meat had a similar texture to rubber, as well as little to no flavor (for reference, he informed me he prefers arbys french dip, and he's a Cordon Bleu student). For the service, it was fairly cold, the server never introduced herself, always let my drink go empty for a while before offering a refill, and rarely checked on our food (never checked on our appetizer). I saw the owner frequently going in and out of the kitchen passing directly by our table (we were the only table in the dining area) and never introduced himself or asked how the food was.

As a summary: If you want bad dive bar food and poor service in an upscale environment this is the...