The Dining Club convenes in a pub called the Bailey on a baking hot summer’s evening in North London, and while waiting for the members to assemble I manage to consume two pints of low quality but ice cold Australian lager in quick succession. Due to the extraordinary heat, you understand. I’m joined in preprandial drinks by the others and by the time we get to that evening’s venue proper – the Tbilisi on the Holloway Road - we are all, I think, both enervated by alcohol and made listless by the heat (did I mention it was hot?). This is unfortunate, as what would’ve been ideal is somewhere unpretentious, bright and lively; somewhere we could relax and wake up a bit…
Tbilisi is the first of the restaurants we’ve been to that obviously aspires to “classiness”. It doesn’t quite work, though; although pleasant enough and well within the bounds of taste, the atmosphere within is stifling – there are two or three tables of diners already in place, and the conversation doesn’t seem to rise above a whisper. The service is efficient rather than friendly, and the menu slightly confusing, though easily explained. I know absolutely not a single thing about Georgian food beyond something I’ve read to the effect that it is well-regarded, and combines both Slavic and more Mediterranean elements. We order with keen anticipation, then. First up is a plate of cheese bread (khachapuri), which seems more akin to a stuffed pancake. Not unpleasant, and the cheese is tangy and salty in a good way, reminding me of a Caerphilly. For our starters, all of us opt for borsht, apart from Sarah, who orders the Red Bean Soup, which turns out to be a mistake (more anon). The borsht is unlike the consommé we expected; heartier, thicker and strangely enough lacking much evidence of beetroot. The main ingredient seems to be grated cabbage, although I could be incorrect. All the bowls on the table are furnished with an over-generous garnish of coriander – establishing something of a theme for the evening. The borchst isn’t unpleasant, maybe quite tasty, but not wholly convincing. And far, far too filling for a starter. Sarah’s Red Bean Soup is more problematic, however; she compares it to a tin of kidney beans emptied into a pan and heated up, and then served with the water (oh, and not forgetting the shovelful of coriander). She gamely tries to eat enough not to be insulting to our hosts, but it’s clearly a struggle.
On to the mains. There are two orders of the lamb, one of the chicken and one of the beef, all arriving under a heavy canopy of the ubiquitous coriander. Not having had it explained to us by our waiter that most of these plates include no carbs, we haven’t ordered any – probably a good thing as capacity was nearly reached by the soups alone, and there’s still some bread on the table which will do adequately. My beef and pickles is very good. The meat has been cooked in a rich stew, well spiced and the vinegar of the sliced pickles on top cut through the richness in a quite pleasing manner. The lamb dish seems to have a similar (not quite identifiable to my palate) flavour base, but is blander than my beef, to its detriment. Things unfortunately take a quite disastrous turn with the chicken. The menu’s description of spiced chicken in a walnut sauce doesn’t quite prepare one for something that looks and tastes like nothing so much as a tin of Fray Bentos chicken curry emptied on to a plate and put in the microwave. It, at least, is accompanied by something that tastes encouragingly like pap, of which my South African brother-in-law is fond of making at barbecues and of which I in turn have grown fond. Lucy struggles to eat a couple of fork fulls of the curry-in-a-tin and I nobly help finish it (I’ve never actually minded curried chicken in a tin). I should also mention that I ordered a glass of the house Georgian red, which to my admittedly uneducated palate went down very well indeed.
While we reluctantly discussed the idea of desserts (more out of politeness than anything else – I think we were all by that stage keen to get out of Tbilisi’s increasingly stifling atmosphere) we realised that not only our waiter but all of the three or four staff had disappeared. After several awkward minutes of drumming fingers on the table and umming and ahhing about what to do next, I saw someone pottering about near the back exit and went over. He quickly got us the bill (about £20 a head, I think) and we fled once again into the heat of the Holloway night, all of us yet to be convinced of Georgia’s no doubt fine and noble culinary tradition.
Tbilisi
