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Friday,
July 27,
2007, #142 (1409) Sometimes, you just want the food to come to you. The Messenger, in our tireless campaign to improve your life, dialed up three Tbilisi restaurants willing to deliver. After arduous and exacting taste tests in our sprawling office complex, we present the results to you, our surely grateful readers: Baan Thai: A Great Addition to Tbilisi’s Ethnic Food Scene Delivery fee: A pricey GEL 10 For those looking to get authentic ethnic food in Tbilisi, choices sometimes might seem a little dire. It was much to our dismay when, at a Japanese restaurant, we discovered that several of the dishes on the menu were topped with a whole lot of cheese. That’s what makes the new restaurant Baan Thai, which offers moderately priced Thai food that’s also quite authentic, so great—it tastes like Thai food. Well, more than that too. It’s safe to say Baan Thai blows away the competition in the Thai–Georgian–Tbilisi–located–ethnic–Southeast Asian–food market. Baan Thai’s on Tabukashvili Street, parallel to Rustaveli behind the opera house, and marginally out of walking distance for on-the-go Messenger staff. They deliver, as long as the receiving end pays for travel expenses, which was an eyebrow-raising GEL 10 for us. Ordering was quite easy—the woman taking the order spoke excellent English. In terms of time, she said that the food would arrive in around thirty minutes, although it ended up taking closer to fifty. The food, though, was well worth the wait. The three dishes we ordered, which were a lot for three diners but barely enough for four, cost GEL 30. The spring rolls (GEL 10 for four) were very nice, with ginger and fish sauce and all sorts of things that you can’t really find much of in the Caucasus (make use of the fish sauce by the way—it adds tremendously to the dish). The Tom Kha soup (GEL 10) was also very good—when ordering we specified that we wanted it spicy, and indeed, it was some of the spiciest food we’ve had in Tbilisi (though doesn’t approach Thai standards of spicy). The Pad Thai (GEL 10) was great and the best of the three—light, flavorful and very, very tasty. It could have had more crunch to the vegetables, but that’s about it. If you’re looking for something that’s not khinkali or kababi and want to try something more exotic for Georgia, Baan Thai is an excellent choice, with an accommodating staff for English speakers and utterly delicious food. Definitely recommended. Il Garage: Great Pizza, Plenty of Pasta Delivery fee: A reasonable GEL 3 (plus GEL 1 for the take-out packaging) The food at Il Garage, an Italian restaurant on UN circle, offers a variety of Italian foods ranging in quality from really good to pretty okay. We easily gave the order in English and other than having to repeat a few things, there weren’t any problems. The woman taking my order gave me an absurd E.T.A. of ten minutes; it actually took closer to 25 to arrive (which is more comforting than anything). The food arrived hot—really hot—with the plastic containers literally melted together. We started with bruschetta (one being complimentary with the dish, extra are 50 tetri each), which had a delicious tomato topping but the bread was a bit soggy (we suspect this would not be a problem in non-take out conditions). The next dish, “tagliatelle with four cheese sauce” (GEL 13) was a bit of a disappointment. It arrived with this melted cheese exoskeleton that we had to penetrate to get to the pasta, and once inside, the sheer quantity of the cheese was overwhelming to say the least; it seemed like in addition to having four different cheeses, this dish may have included four times as much cheese as needed as well. The “rigatoni (baked) with mixed sauce and with cheese” (GEL 12) was better, although nothing really to write home about, with a rustic sauce including mushrooms and a much more manageable amount of cheese. Il Garage does offer generous pasta portions for its prices—for GEL 31 worth of food, we were able to sufficiently feed seven or eight ravenous Messenger journalistas. On a separate occasion we ordered their pizza, which was delicious! We had the ham and mushroom pizza (large GEL 14), and the salami pizza (large GEL 13). They were the best pizza we’ve tasted in Tbilisi; with a thin crust and a very distinctive sauce that didn’t necessarily taste Italian but still worked. And a nice surprise of two complimentary bruschetta came with each large pizza. Note: Be careful trying to order pizza too late at night. One of us tried a little after 10 p.m. one night, and their driver was no longer available. New Asia: Standard Fare Imitation Chinese Delivery fee: GEL 6 Imitation Chinese food has such a firm place in the takeaway market that it’s only right for us to include it as the final installment in this food delivery extravaganza. We selected New Asia on Lagidze St. (located right off of Rustaveli Ave. up the street from the Nikala cafe), which has an especially fancy menu featuring, in addition to standard fare Chinese selections, pictures of Georgians in traditional Chinese dress at what appears to be a khinkali restaurant rather than a Chinese one. For its price, the “fried rice with eggs and vegetables” (GEL 3) was tremendously worth it. Having gotten two orders, we had more than enough for a good six or seven people (there was a ton of all the food, really). It tasted pretty good as well—it wasn’t overly greasy, unlike a lot of fried rice dishes, and the flavor wasn’t bad at all. The “spring rolls” (80 tetri each), meanwhile, were a bizarre experience more than anything—their wraps tasted like a Russian blini and the interior didn’t have much of a taste at all. The “Sichuan’ pork with mushrooms and bamboo” (GEL 10.30) was fine if you consider ‘Sichuan’ to mean ‘barbecue sauce,’ and don’t mind it that there isn’t actually any noticeable bamboo. Still, the “‘Gonbao’ with beef” (GEL 9) was a lot better, and although it was a bit sweet, it had a nice spice to it as well. Note: If you want soy sauce, make sure you ask for it—it doesn’t just come with your order. It probably costs something, though it’s not listed on the menu. New Asia’s food doesn’t taste particularly exciting or original or, for that matter, new. It does taste like solidly standard imitation Chinese food. You could do worse. |
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