MedinaOnce again, I had left my book at home some­where, so it was anoth­er gold card restau­rant that was need­ed. Since my oth­er sis­ter decid­ed to gate­crash our par­ty, a total dis­count venue, rather than a two-for-one mains was desire­able. And because it was cold and I was lazy and did­n’t feel like walk­ing any­where, some­where on the bus route home was need­ed — prefer­ably some­where that I could get a big plate of hearti­ness at. Med­i­na was decid­ed upon, as it seems to have beat­en the curse that made oth­er restau­rants in its loca­tion at 18 Cam­bridge Ter­race close down very rapid­ly. The review is after the jump.

I arrived at 6pm on the dot, our agreed meet­ing time, and the restau­rant was emp­ty. The very very chat­ty Chi­nese-New Zealan­der maitre d’ (a nat­ur­al choice for a Mor­ro­can restau­rant!) let me pick my own table, and after crack­ing jokes for ages, brought me out a plate of grainy bread, mar­i­nat­ed olives and deli­cious cori­an­ndery hum­mus on the house. I tried to hold back on the plate and wait for my sis­ters, but as he kept talk­ing, and I texted them to hur­ry up because I was too sober for that much chitchat, I decid­ed to eat most of the olives by myself, as they were damn tasty. I ordered a bot­tle of Vidal Sav ($34?) from the small wine list, and laughed at the maitre d’s jokes, resign­ing myself to not being able to work on my book of lists after all. Final­ly my sis­ters showed up and my admirable restraint on the bread and hum­mus was reward­ed with a new larg­er plate of it emerg­ing from the kitchen again. They each ordered Lamb Tagine, and I opt­ed for Chick­en Bastel­la, which promised pas­try, chick­en and nuts. Mmm­mm!

Plates of a stan­dard but tasty sal­ad came out before our mains, which was a nice touch. The tagines were warm and soupy, thick with veg­eta­bles, and my chick­en was sur­pris­ing­ly dust­ed with icing sug­ar, but some­how it worked. It went par­tic­u­lar­ly well with the extra dish of hum­mus I was giv­en with a smile. Mmm­m­mm chick­en pas­try. It might have been nice to get some rice or oth­er form of starch with it for $24, but damn it was tasty. And we were left with some room for dessert, so of course when we heard that the bakla­va was stuffed with cashews, we had to go for that. We asked for two orders of it, and the ever-acco­mo­dat­ing maitre d’ said that it nor­mal­ly comes with four pieces per order, but since there were three of us, he’d ask the chef to give us an extra piece. Thank god he did, because oth­er­wise there might have been some seri­ous dra­ma with­in the McLeod fam­i­ly. That bakla­va was deli­cious.

So with the 25% dis­count, we paid $32 each for mains, wine and dessert, as well as bread & hum­mus, sal­ad and an extra piece of bakla­va on the house. It was­n’t the most mind-blow­ing food ever, but it was yum­my, and the ser­vice was a lit­tle over the top but tak­en in the spir­it with which it was intend­ed. I’d return on a Fri­day or Sat­ur­day to see the bel­ly-danc­ing, have some more laughs with the maitre d’ and to get more of that bakla­va.