How I stopped worrying and learnt to love the voucher

Zigni House, 330 Essex Rd, N1 3PB

Saving money is a faintly aspirational activity in the Fork household. Although we regard it as a laudable pursuit, it is invariably sidelined in favour of new cookbooks, the latest first-person shooter and meals out. My wallet is the envy of my waistline. However, even I have been affected by the money-saving mania that has been sweeping the capital: the internet voucher phenomenon. 

Usually, I behave just as the money saving profiteers expect you to: by signing up for the special offer and then promptly forgetting to take advantage of it. I know this about myself and usually abstain from all deal-based activities. However, a dear friend now works for one of the more successful voucher merchants and convinced me to give it a go. True to form, I found myself with a wealth of food-based vouchers and no plans to use them. Fully aware of this, Mr F suggested a deal-funded date night to ensure we cashed in at least two of the printed vouchers that had started to clutter the house. First stop: half price cocktails at Viajante.

I've been meaning to eat at Viajante for some time but have yet to find an occasion worthy of the treat. When I saw an offer on cocktails, this seemed the perfect way to snoop out the venue without spending a fortune. In this respect, the voucher visit was a success; I am now extremely keen to go back and gorge. The only problem is I am also slightly loath to return to the scene of my all too predictable voucher fail. The problem, as is so often the case with these things, was choice. There was none, so whilst all around us enjoyed beautiful martinis and creative manhattans, Mr F and I bravely waded throughout a guava martini and a pisco punch. Neither were unpleasant but nor were they particularly special. The martini was like having a tiny glass of Rubicon. At £16 for four drinks, they were a steal but I found myself wishing we had gone for just one drink at the marvellous Ziloufs. It would have been closer to our next stop, too: Zigni House.

As with Viajante, we had been meaning to visit Zigni House for some time but had put it off as well, albeit for different reasons. Although we had heard good things about it, we were deterred by the memory of an unpleasant meal at the overrated Asmara in Brixton. So, when I saw a money saving voucher for Zigni, it seemed like the perfect low-risk way to try it.

Tucking into an Ethiopian beer to drive away the lingering taste of guava, we decided to order a vast quantity of food to soak up the cocktails. The wonderful thing about East African food, and what had drawn us to Asmara on our first foray into the region's cuisine, is that it is served on injera, a giant pancakey edible plate thing; which is then used to scoop up the meat and vegetable dishes. At Asmara, our initial delight had turned to dismay when we realised that the closest thing we could think of to describe the taste of their injera was feet. Fortunately, this was not the case at Zigni; the injera was light and bubbly with a subtle note of sourness. Onto this we piled a thick, spicy lamb dish made with good quality meat clinging to little toothsome bones and the fiery Zigni sauce. It was thick, richly flavoured and immense fun to grab with little flannels of injera and stuff inelegantly into our greedy faces. A chicken dish with peppers and a bowl of lemony lentils received similar treatment. The highlight, however, was a dish of raw minced beef and creamy spinach. Delicately spiced and squigdy-textured, the beef was lightly cooked by the warm injera and silky spinach. Like an East African take on steak tartare, it was a genuinely surprising but delicious dish. We proudly presented our voucher which entitled us to £30 of food, chucked in another £20 to cover our beers and rolled ourselves back to Dalston, very full and very happy.

My learning point from this experience is that those half price, no choice vouchers are still rubbish. Unless you have a zen-like ability to cope with drink-envy, which I do not, they are bound to leave you disappointed. However, the pay £13 for £30 worth of food vouchers may actually have a place in my life, particularly if they are all for places as fabulous and enjoyable as Zigni House.