WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA – Ever since PiddeG, a brand new fast casual Turkish restaurant opened in Walnut Creek on August 18, locals have been obsessed with it.
I’ve seen multiple online discussions about how amazing and fresh the food is, and readers kept writing in to say we had to try it!
So, I did just that! I stopped into PiddeG for lunch, and tried the new Turkish spot’s falafel, tea, Turkish sweets, salad and of course their signature dish: Pidde.
Here’s my review.
The Ambiance
PiddeG is located in Walnut Creek, California’s relatively newly-renovated Encina Grande shopping center, right next to the Whole Foods.
As soon as I walked in, I was immediately struck by how huge this place is inside! From the outside, the narrow storefront and smattering of outdoor tables makes it look like a hole-in-the-wall kind of joint. The photos I’ve seen online tend to reinforce that.
In reality, the interior of PiddeG is expansive. The restaurant extends far back to a large kitchen, and there’s an entire large dining room in the back. When I visited, a big group of about 15 people was celebrating a birthday party, and there was plenty of room for other guests.
When you first arrive at PiddeG, you’re greeted by a display case with mounds of beautiful Turkish delight (more on that below!). There’s a counter where you can place your order, and a menu board showing the restaurant’s offerings.
Towards the back of the restaurant, you’ll find a giant brick oven–the traditional cooking method for the restaurant’s signature Pidde, or Turkish flatbreads. The oven extends into the dining room, so you can watch a staff member cook Piddes while waiting for your meal.
PiddeG is a fast casual restaurant, which means you place your order at the counter and a server brings your food to the table. That’s nice because it means prices are lower than a full sit-down place with waiters, and the food comes out fast. You can easily stop by PiddeG on your lunch break.
The interior of the restaurant is beautifully designed, with lots of gleaming white, green accents (perhaps evoking the pistachios that are common in Turkish cooking?) and gold. Turkish food is beautiful to look at, and PiddeG’s interior complements that.
The Food
On our visit, I tried multiple items from the PiddeG menu. Many of the items on the menu are based around a protein, served in a variety of ways. You pick your protein and how you’d like it prepared.
You can choose falafel, veggies, chicken donner, beef kabab, kofte, prawns or a variety of other proteins, and have them served as a plate, wrap, bowl or salad.
When you first sit down, a staff member comes around to offer you a little, complementary glass of Turkish tea, served from a beautiful copper brewer behind the counter.
It’s the perfect thing to sip on while you wait for your meal to arrive. The food came out quite quickly at PiddeG, taking only about 10 minutes to arrive.
I got the falafel plate. It came with multiple falafel, as well as a side of seasoned white rice.
Complementing the falafel was a salad with sumac, a traditional Middle Eastern spice.
The salad was extremely fresh and crispy. Some places treat their sides as an necessary evil, but PiddG clearly takes care to source very fresh ingredients–something that other diners have told us again and again about the new place.
The falafel are light and fluffy, with a flavor more like a corn fritter than the more chickpea-intense falafel I often get at other places in the area. Everything is served with a side of pita bread.
The falafel plate was good, but the real standout dish here–unsurprisingly, given the restaurant’s name–is the Pidde.
Pidde is a traditional Turkish flatbread. Some people call it a Turkish pizza, as its crusty is more pizza-like than most flatbreads. As with a pizza, you can choose the toppings you’d like to have inside. I went with diced beef, which is apparently one of the most popular toppings.
The Pidde is fantastic! I’m usually not a big flatbread person, but the Pidde here is flavorful, crispy and clearly full of fresh ingredients.
Pidde is shaped a bit like a boat, making it both lovely to look at and very good at containing the melt mixture of toppings filling the flatbread.
My wife likened the consistency of the crust to a calzone. It’s chewy and glutinous without getting dried out, as can sometimes happen with pizza crust.
PiddeG slices their Pidde into thin pieces, making it perfect for sharing. It comes with a side of a spicy red sauce, and a yogurt or labneh liked dipping sauce as well.
If you’re the kind of person who like dipping their pizza into ranch dressing, this dipping experience will feel very familiar to you!
Of course, this being a Turkish restaurant, the meal doesn’t end with the hearty items. It’s basically mandatory to save room for dessert.
PiddeG serves a huge variety of Turkish delight, a traditional Turkish dessert made with starch and sugar–almost the consistency of Japanese mochi–and flavored with a wide range of ingredients.
I tried a rose and pomegranate Turkish delight, as well as a milk, chocolate and hazelnut one. They look a bit like little, sweet sushi rolls!
The outsides were coated in dried rose petals.
I liked the Turkish delight, but I tend to like simpler versions of the dish, like the ones they serve at Miette bakery in San Ramon. This Turkish delight is flavorful and fresh, but the multitude of textures was a bit too much for me.
The best dessert at PiddeG, in my book, is the baklava. Locals raved about this little honey and pistachio morsel, and it is indeed the perfect way to end a meal at PiddeG.
The restaurant serves baklava several ways, including in pie-like slices with chocolate and other toppings.
The Verdict
PiddeG is a fantastic addition to Walnut Creeks’ dining scene. The combination of fast service, a new and beautifully appointed interior, and a versatile but not overwhelming menu make it an ideal place to grab lunch.
The freshness of the ingredients stands out. Even side items like the salad are clearly prepared with care.
The highlight, though, is the Pidde. I had never tried this Turkish specialty before, but now I’m a total convert! I love a good calzone, and this feels like an elevation of the dish, combined with totally different flavors than you’d get in a New Jersey pizza joint.
Pair that with some sweet tea and a bit of baklava, and you’ve got a perfect lunch, all for under $30 (the Pidde is about $20 depending on the preparation, and the baklava is a few dollars per slice.)
PiddeG also feels like it’s going places. The store has only been open for a few weeks, but it already has its own mobile app, a snazzy digital menu, and a Mediterranean-diet friendly menu that feels ready for expansion to more locations.
I’d be shocked if this is the only PiddeG that gets built, locally and beyond.
The final thing we need to address is the small matter of PiddeG’s name. Locals are getting tripped up over its meaning and how to pronounce it.
We asked a staff member, who confirmed it’s pronounced like “Pita-GEE”. Apparently attaching “G” to a word in Turkish means “place there an item is served.” So PiddeG means “a place that serves Pidde.”
They do. And they do it exceptionally well!
Address: 2979 Ygnacio Valley Rd, Walnut Creek, CA 94598
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