Even before setting foot inside Virgo & Pisces, which has
recently staked out the corner of NW 21st and Glisan, there were
warning signs. The restaurant’s website, for example, advertises
“Northwest cuisine with a Pan-Asian flair.” Eep. A few years behind the
curve on that one, guys. Or how about “Your horoscope-themed restaurant
and bar (What’s your sign?).” Well, since you asked, I’m a Scorpio, and
the only pick-up line that works on me is “Can I buy you a drink?” If
Virgo & Pisces approached me at a bar, I’d excuse myself to the
bathroom and never come back.
The bright dining room boasts horoscope- and restaurant-themed
art—a scorpion holding salt and pepper shakers! A bull wearing a
chef’s hat! One wall is painted in bright blue, decorated with fish,
while the booths appear to have been purchased at the same restaurant
supply shop that outfits Chili’s. The overall effect is further
confused by some exposed particleboard that’s either a deliberate
attempt to give the room a rustic feel(?), or an indication that the
owners ran out of money before the room was finished.
There’s really no other way to put this: The menu is a mess, with a
physical layout as confusing as the items it contains. There are
salads. There are sandwiches. There are crêpes and small plates,
and the entrées are categorized by whether they are “from the
earth” or “from the sea.” There are scallop “cigars” and truffled
fries, a peanut butter and jelly crêpe, and fried rice—it’s
a scattershot, corporate-sounding menu that might have been designed by
a focus group, and the food itself is no better.
An otherwise-fine turkey sandwich was utterly destroyed by a
too-sweet fruit chutney, and the accompanying salad, overdressed and
vinegary, provided no relief from the onslaught of aggressively
uninteresting flavors. A dish of leathery, overcooked rockfish in a
cloying “sweet chili” sauce was equally unimproved by sides of
indifferent rice and heavily garlicked spinach. Potstickers were on a
par with the frozen kind you fry up yourself; and I’m not sure
what you do to a butternut squash to give it the paste-like
consistency of Virgo & Pisces’ soup, but it can’t be pretty. A
dessert of gingerbread cake and lemongrass ice cream may have sounded
good on paper, but on plate it tasted like overkill, hardly helped by a
gloppy, overpowering brown butter sauce. While I didn’t get a chance to
try their brunch—arriving a precious three minutes too late for
the weekend cut-off time—a nearby diner’s omelet and potatoes
looked more appealing than anything that ended up at my table.
Virgo & Pisces’ most egregious violations against good taste are
confined to the dining room; the adjoining bar, with its dim lighting
and McCormick & Schmick’s-inspired menu, is blandly
serviceable—they’d do better, in fact, to expand the bar and
ditch the dining room altogether.
As a Scorpio I am also “compassionate” and I “understand failings”
(according to Wikipedia!), so this review would not be complete without
noting that on each of my visits the service was attentive,
professional, and friendly—even when, on one Sunday afternoon,
the bartender was single handedly waiting on the bar, dining room, and
outside tables. That situation looked like a server making the best of
a poor management decision, unsurprising in a restaurant characterized
by as many bad decisions as this one.