Our waitress Stephanie, clad head-to-toe in black, mixed savory soy sauce with tart vinegar and struggled to chat over the cacophony of voices gathered in the softly-lit, warehouse-style dining room bubbling in celebration of P.F. Chang’s China Bistro’s opening.
Stephanie is one of many well-groomed University students hired to work at the Chinese food restaurant chain that usually reserves itself for larger metropolitan areas. On Monday, P.F. Chang’s unlocked its doors and welcomed customers into the dark yellow, magenta and gold-flecked room, airy with high ceilings but crowded with small tables.
The boisterous and knowledgeable operating partner of the Eugene location, Kathy Cassidy, pointed out a hand-painted mural overtaking the right wall, but insisted the restaurant’s prices don’t reflect the interior’s gaudiness. “It’s casual, but yet it’s not,” she said. “Value is one of our visions.”
After sipping some plummy iced tea, we sampled vegetarian dumplings. The dough tasted buttery delicious, but the vegetables within were unidentifiable. The shrimp dumplings, however, had the same buttery dough wrapped around fresh-caught shrimp. After some persuasion, I bit into some salt and pepper calamari. Trust me. It’s addictive. I lost all inhibition and ate the squid like it was a bag of chips.
The restaurant is one large, rectangular dining room lined by five-person booths on the right, a long sofa-booth seat on the left and four-person tables rowed in between. This creates a gymnasium effect, making the bistro a place for casual friend and family dining, but not for an intimate date. The outdoor patio, again a rectangular floor plan, is filled with bronze metal furniture and fans that will make spring lunches at the bistro breezy in the warm sun.
The random mix of jazz bar and 1980s music creates an up-and-down, light-hearted, yet classic ambiance. Whether this is a good thing depends on the diner’s mood.
Stephanie served us spicy white fish, golden-crisped with Sichuan sauce, soft rice noodles and silky tofu surrounded by steamed broccoli. “Our dishes are family style – you’ve got to share,” she said. Indeed, P.F. Chang’s meals are inviting for families and friends, though might not be the right portion size for lone diners or dinner-daters.
Two small flat-screen televisions hang in the bistro’s bar, which is filled with stools and three booths if you want your meal taken to the next level of intoxicating. The bartenders were lively, encouraging each other with “shake it!” when they showed the Emerald how to prepare a Lucky Cat Martini: vanilla Smirnoff and Chambord with a pineapple garnish. The bar has a more elegant restaurant feel than most local bars but lacks the Eugene character. You may need to bring the fun if you decide to drink at Oakway Center.
Server Donnie Curtis, who came up from California to help the new location start up, swears by the banana spring rolls. He took his girlfriend out one night and said, “honey, let’s switch things up and get some chocolate cake.” After the chocolate cake, the two drove home in silence. Curtis later found out his girlfriend’s coolness was due to her banana spring roll deprival.
Beyond fairly priced foods and family-sized portions, P.F. Chang’s has the taste reliability of a chain restaurant. The Eugene location offers little new fare if you’ve been to another P.F. Chang’s location before. But it offers a clean and beautiful place to eat, though you may have to compete for audible conversation. The service proved quick and the dishes let taste speak for itself, with little garnishing or decoration in presentation.
P.F. Chang’s is no Tom’s Tea House, but for a trendy night out with friends that won’t cause you to over-splurge, Eugene’s newest chain restaurant addition offers big enough plates to fill up the table and satisfy your savory-food cravings.
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