Girl & The Goose is a Nicaraguan underground dining experience by Gigi, a culinary host who welcomes and cooks for you in her home. Each dish is a family recipe, mastered to perfection and served along with its background story. Every dish was sugar-free, gluten-free, free from trans fats and, when possible, organic. Good, healthy food, laboured over with love such as this is always a treat, but when you factor in a cuisine you’ve never sampled before, the experience intensifies tenfold.
The concept brings a group of complete strangers from all different backgrounds to sit down together and enjoy a specially prepared 5 course meal. Starting with a carefully crafted welcome drink of gin with highlights of grapefruit and rosemary, and an amuse-bouche of sweet plantain, grilled cheese and date syrup to break the ice, the conversation inevitably goes into full swing. Gigi prompts us to stay away from the typical Dubai questions of ‘what one does’, or ‘where one comes from’ until at least the 3rd course, and in the unlikely emergency of being at a loss for topics of conversation, she has individual questions printed out and placed at each table setting on standby. You know straight away that the evening will excel with the level of detail that has gone into it.
Our first course was a traditional Nicaraguan Soup, traditionally served at Lent, with a delicate tomato base, some fresh cucumber, and served with a savoury cheese doughnut and fresh mint leaves to open up the senses. The second course was a Golden Flauta (or rolled taco) with huitlacoche (corn mushroom also known as ‘Mexican truffle’), oyster mushrooms, roasted chestnuts, red beans, salsa verde and sour cream, with each ingredient perfectly complimenting the other.
The Coconut Ceviche with its organic seabass, coconut milk and fresh slivers of coconut, mango and red onions was a creation of utter beauty, and one we could have eaten twice over. The fourth and final main dish was the Arroz Aguado, a beautiful arrangement of rice with goat cheese, caramelised pumpkin, crispy onions, seared scallops and the simplicity of lemon zest. And finally, we finished with the delectable Cinnamon Ice Cream served on a tapioca cake, with caramel sauce and ginger.
The portions are perfect, and you are guaranteed to feel the need to try more of Gigi’s future supper club flavours – that is, if you’re quick enough to get a booking!
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