Herald rating: * * 1/2
Address: 209 Symonds St CBD
Ph: (09) 302 2061
Website: www.ginas.co.nz
Open: Lunch five days; dinner seven days
Wine list: Mostly Italian, most by the glass, well-priced.
Vegetarians: Plenty of choices.
Watch out for: The deafening atmosphere.
Bottom line: Cheerful, although not so cheap.
I want your job, people sometimes say to me. Here's the perfect answer.
How often do you go out to dinner at a restaurant because somebody - well, several people, actually - have told you it's lousy? You'd have to be stupid, right? Or a restaurant reviewer feeling the pangs of professional duty.
"We'll come," my two adult children said in salivating unison. Students both, they eat out at Rasoi, the Indian vegetarian restaurant in K Rd which, in terms of delight per dollar, is probably the best restaurant in New Zealand. Thus, unlike their father, they are not fussy when someone else is paying.
Gina's, the descendant of pizza bars that flourished in Victoria St and later in Mt Eden in the 70s and 80s, is a popular trattoria which, true to its full name, specialises in pizza and pasta but has a dozen mains (or secondi as the Italians call them).
Its shtick is a cheerful raucous-ness, generated mainly by the impromptu kitchen recitals of percussion on pots and pans, but also by the waiters, who roar at both the cooks and the diners. This is, in short, not a place for an intimate date, but you don't go to McDonald's unless you want fries with that, you know what I mean?
As the students and I caught up over a nice chianti, the waiter hovered. It took me some time to realise that he wanted us to hurry. In hindsight, I couldn't help feeling a bit irritated by this. When you pay the thick end of $80 a head for dinner you don't expect to linger till the buses have stopped running, but neither should you expect to feel your presence is inconvenient or that quick turnover is more important than customer satisfaction.
In any case, we complied by ordering a quartet of starters which turned out to be of dubious quality; my insalata caprese featured a very generous helping of mozzarella di bufala, as soft and succulent as a baby's cheek, but the tomato was pallid and unripe and the basil old and limp; son's bruschetta of tomato and basil had similar problems and seemed very dear at $15 for two bits of bread, although I see now that we were overcharged; daughter's smoked salmon, marinated in lemon, tasted mainly of lemon; and a special of scallops came in an ill-judged rich caper sauce that obliterated the delicate flavour of the shellfish. The garnish of tired lettuce and dry onion on a couple of the dishes evoked an assembly line rather than a kitchen.
I'd like to say things improved but my contract requires an honest report. We chose a simple vegetarian pizza, a spaghetti bolognese and a special of three veal scaloppine, rolled up and filled with mushrooms and prosciutto.
All were unexceptionable, unremarkable - and uncheap. The veal, accompanied by a wedge of pizza bread, mash and mesclun, was $30. Two fine desserts redeemed matters somewhat, although a cheese plate that arrived without cheese seemed odd, but it was soon rectified. Still, I left unimpressed. I had, apparently, been spared the indignities visited on some recent diners, but it seems to me that Gina's needs a back-to-basics rethink. Bellowing waiters and birthday singing is all very well, but the food needs to be better than this.
