Turkish in Collingwood with Chris

glennji | Mar 25, 2012 min read

Last night we had dinner with Dee’s brother Chris, who is in Melbourne for work, at a trendy Smith St café/restaurant called Gigibaba — expensive but delicious!

We picked him up around 4 and headed into Collingwood, stopping oh-so-briefly at a skate shop on Brunswick St to buy some bitchin’ baby threads … strange, but once you get past the boards and rolling gear at the front there’s a little “kids” section at the back, featuring some very cool stuff from Paul & Paula: hoodies with dinosaur heads or sharks, cool little jeans. It’s like Etsy – they’re one-offs, and custom sizes can be ordered – but you can see the clothes before you buy them.

A quick coffee in The Fitz and we headed to Smith St, found a park and had a wander. Smith St: we pull up across the road from a “happening” — music thrashing, leather jackets clinking, Mohawks, er, mowing. “That’s not where we’re eating, is it?”

Thankfully not: Gigibaba was a tiny little place half a block up that served meze sized Turkish food: kebap, sausages, baba ganouj. Apparently it’s hard to get a spot, as they don’t do bookings and most of the seating is along the bar. Despite their rep, we got a table with room for Jules’ pram, admittedly when they opened at 6 — and the food was delicious. Expensive, but delicious.

We ate, ordered more, ate more, repeat … eventually we were full enough to resist the burger joint next door, so headed off, sated and done for the night. It was fun!