If ever a restaurant should be called ‘hot’, Gigi Baba (102 Smith St, Collingwood) is it. When we arrived right at opening time, on a Tuesday night, there were already about 3 groups, totaling about 10 people, waiting at the door. This is largely due to the no-bookings policy, which encourages diners to arrive early to ensure a seat.
Once we were seated at the bar, we ordered a couple of beers from the small, well chosen selection. I tried one I’d never heard of, the very tasty Schmucker Bio-Pils. Every wine on the list is available as a glass, a 300ml carafe, 500ml carafe, or a bottle. This is a great idea.
The menu is relatively brief, and very economical with words. Some dishes are not described at all, despite not necessarily being well known. For instance, no information is given about the Sultan’s Delight. When I inquired, I was told it was slow cooked lamb. I asked how it was different to a dish called something like ‘Slow cooked lamb’. The answer was that it was cooked longer, and spiced differently, but that’s about as much information as I could extract.
Small dishes tried included the Esme, a fantastically flavoursome tomato and capsicum-based dip, served with delicious bread. Though I’m probably being generous when I say the serving (for 2) comprised 3 tablespoons of dip. Slightly more substantial was the minced lamb in vine leaves, although curiously, the serving for 2 came with 5 pieces. A serving of runner beans were nice, as was the lamb kofta. The latter started off tasting like run-of-the-mill kofta, but finished with a fantastic lemon flavour.
We ordered two ‘large dishes’, the aforementioned Sultan’s Delight, which was a couple of large chunks of lamb, sitting in rich sauce with some sort of cheese over the top. The meat came apart using just a fork, although it was a little drier and fattier than I had expected.
The other ‘large’ tried was blue eye with potatoes and beetroot. This arrived as a small fillet with a few pieces of boiled or steamed potato, along with some baby beets. Again, as with all the dishes, this very well done.
With the suspicion that bill was already quite high, and with very little information about what was on offer proffered, we decided against dessert.
In the end it only worked out to around $110 (including 2 beers and a glass of wine), but that’s about the minimum 2 people would get away with ordering.