Restaurant Review: Gargantua

Icoanei Park and Str JL Calderon, tel 021 211 4041

This town has some pretty crazy names for restaurants, such as The Loft in Dorabanti (which is not a loft, it’s on the ground floor) and The Left Hand in Cotroceni (work that one out for yourselves) and now Gargantua in Icoanei – a mythical giant character written about in the 16th century by François Rabelais – so it beats me as to what connection that name has with a restaurant!

Michael Barclay

But let us go there. It was packed at lunchtime on my visit, and you will soon see why. It is a pre-fabricated small building made up of mostly glass panel walls. Surprisingly, the interior was quite dark, but well positioned wall lights had a calming and comforting effect. The table cloths were all white, which made it a bit ‘serious’ for what you will soon see is basically a bistro. Dark velvet buttoned sofas again made it all a bit serious, but no matter. My only criticism of the decor was the dark brown carpet which picked up every single grain of dust off your shoes and then left it there shaming you. But, thereafter, all was extremely good. Our waitress arrived with a beaming smile. The menu contained a far too large 71 choices. I was surprised that in a relatively serious place there was a choice of six pizzas, as it rather lowered the tone of an otherwise extremely good menu. They even had five eggy things on a breakfast menu – and yes, they really do open at 9.00 am to serve it. So away we went to appetizers from a list of ten with excellent prices ranging between RON 15 for tomato and prosciutto to RON 25 for crostini toast with smoked salmon, lemon sauce plus capers and Mozzarella. What a bargain. We passed on snails, salmon tartar, aubergine terrine, and liver terrine with reduced berry sauce, all at similar or lower prices than those mentioned.

Blondie was suffering from her usual mid-week hangover and decided to go for a light salad. Again, they had a large selection of nine salads, including a seductive shrimp number containing: Iceberg lettuce, ruccola, cucumber, radishes, mint, shrimps, salmon roe and feta cheese. But she chose a smoked duck salad, including: four slices of duck, ruccola, mustard seeds, capers, parsley, cheese, lettuce plus truffle oil. This did not work as the capers were cooked (thereby removing their aromatic salty taste), there was no evidence of truffle oil, the eggs were soft boiled and runny in the French fashion and the lettuce was wet and limp, probably because it had been standing for too long as we were at the end of the lunchtime shift.

But we forgave the House for this one mistake as the rest was superb. I had a duck leg in red wine sauce. The meat was slowly cooked in a French confit style which rendered it soft and tender, thereby dispelling the myth that all duck should be served under-cooked and pink! The accompanying vegetables were perfectly cooked and served crunchy and full of flavor. Bravo House!

From the pizza selection, I just had to test the House by ordering a classic Calzone. This product is a pizza containing ham, Mozzarella and mushrooms, but folded over as a solid sandwich. Pizza joints the world over lie through their teeth by stating it was a staple food of ancient Roman Legionnaires who could hold it with one hand and eat it whilst they marched. Bullshit. But it is fabulous when correctly served with red-hot chili sauce. It was done so. Again, bravo House! By this stage, I realized why the place was so very busy. Their prices were so far below those of their competition, whilst they had excellently prepared dishes which would equal some of the best eateries in town. For instance, their fish dishes (which contained the usual fish suspects you see on every Romanian menu) were priced around an average charge of RON 35. This included salmon and fresh ginger, trout in almond sauce, dorada with ratatouille, and much more.

At this point, Blondie was feeling fit and fresh and rounded off her ‘feeding fitness regime’ with one of twenty exotic teas. Her honey tea was presented impeccably, but she passed on peach, melon, mint, jasmine and lemon. As for me, I had to pass one last glancing look at the food I was too full to ask for. All at average prices of RON 35, there was a selection including turkey, roasted Parmesan, Gorgonzola, cucumbers and shrimps. And if that did not fill you there was Foie Gras with wine pears and honey sauce.