When the wind blows

Doug’s dinners

Scirocco Restaurant
Le Meridien Hotel,
St Julian’s
Tele: 2311 2240

Food: 6/10
Service: 5/10
Ambience: 7/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 6/10

When I received an e-mail from your regular restaurant reviewer asking if Doug was available to cover for him while he was abroad, I was slightly taken aback. Why had Ed sent that to me and who was this Doug he spoke of?

A free-for-all, with people heading off to various sections of the buffet at a variety of times

Okay, I exaggerate. But the truth is that as time passes and my forays into the restaurant reviewing world become less and less frequent, I am starting to forget my carefully crafted alter ego ever existed.

A bit like that time when Clark Kent forgot he was Superman, only with less lycra and my underpants inside my trousers.

It took years to create my alternative world and countless hours of deliberating to decide how to rename my family and friends for the sake of advanced anonymity.

Yet adding a second child to the Doug ranks meant my days of being able to go out to eat on a regular basis were put on long-term hold.

Still, my new role as emergency reserve reviewer, only to wheeled out when Ed is otherwise disposed, suits everyone just fine. Probably none more than you lot who don’t have to put up with me every week.

As it happens, Ed’s plea for help couldn’t have come at a better time as I had been trying to sort out a Sunday lunch involving my side of the family. And this was just the push we needed to get the ball rolling.

In fact, all that remained was to pick a destination and, thanks to the power of radio advertising, we ended up heading for the Scirocco Restaurant at the Le Meridien Hotel for their much-publicised Sunday buffet.

Parking was fine – straight into the hotel car park – and we are settling down at our table pretty much on time, an increasingly infrequent occurrence these days.

Surprisingly, we were the first of our party to arrive although there were already plenty of other tables occupied in the expansive restaurant.

Our table is made up of a couple of generations of adults, four-year-old Lizzie and 18-month old George, who has his very own high chair to quickly get bored of.

The kids, being under the age of eight, are eating for free, which is a nice touch. In hindsight, however, it might have backfired slightly, considering how much they managed to devour over the course of the next couple of hours.

Outside observers must have wondered if we ever fed them.

Since arriving we had been trying to get someone’s attention to order drinks. Even after the rest of our party turn up, it remains a frustrating and lengthy process.

Considering they were not actually serving any food, I found it strange that the staff were not paying much closer attention to serving drinks.

When we do manage to place our drinks order it takes a further 15 minutes before they actually arrive. That’s well over half an hour to get a drink, which is a rather poor showing no matter how busy a place is.

We’ve all resisted going up for any food up until this point. Well, nearly all. The little people are already tucking into plates that contain a variety of kid-friendly foods supplied by Sharon, including chicken nuggets, chips, sausages and pasta. There is a mini section of the buffet dedicated to children.

There is, as you are all very well aware, little ceremony about a buffet. It’s very much a free-for-all dining experience with little or no attention paid to traditional eating methods. And our table doesn’t disappoint, with different people heading off to various sections of the buffet at a variety of times.

On that basis it was nearly impossible to keep up with what everybody had. Instead I will try and use myself as a barometer of the overall meal.

I started off with a swift but eager visit to the Asian section of the buffet and returned with some spring rolls, prawn crackers, a beefy concoction and one or two other small items.

In terms of taste and texture, I have no complaints. However, none of the items are what you would call particularly hot temperature wise. And we are within tripping distance of the buffet so a long walk back to the table was certainly not responsible for this lack of heat.

As I said, all the items tasted good, just a shame they weren’t hot enough.

In an attempt to avoid looking like someone who has just been rescued from a desert island, I resist the temptation to push my plate to one side and instantly head off for another dip into the sea of food. Instead I keep an eye on the kids while Sharon goes to fill her own plate.

Lizzie is still wolfing down pasta while George, in between mouthfuls, has come up with a game that seems to involve throwing chips under the feet of passing diners.

I’m not sure of the rules precisely, but it is causing substantial mirth in my boy.

Next up for me is a soup trip and I return with one that has a vegetable base and blue cheese as its sidekick. Excellent stuff: robust, tasty and piping hot to boot.

Around the table, comments from my fellow diners are mostly positive although it isn’t just me that’s noticed some of the dishes are not as warm as they should be.

Having caught a glimpse of some king prawns on one of my forays, I head there now. The bad news is the plate is empty but it is refilled while I am standing there looking sad and I head back to base to begin peeling and dismembering these strange looking aquatic beasts. Never an easy process, but one I am happy to endure with an eye on the end product.

Before anyone accuses me of pure gluttony, I think it is pertinent to point out that each of my trips had only involved a single layer of food on one of the small plates they provide

Some diners on other tables were returning from the buffet with plates piled so high, it was like watching a balancing act at the circus.

Anyway, it was time for bigs, even though I had pretty much eaten myself into oblivion by this point. I do manage some of the roast pork, however, which is fine.

Sadly, the accompanying gravy is cold and a touch lumpy.

I also take some of the rabbit stew out for a quick spin and find it to be very good in a traditionally Maltese style. Special mention to the potatoes too, which were very moreish.

You would have thought we had reached capacity by now, but somehow we all still have space for dessert. And the selection is vast, almost too much to take in.

Between us we try probably 10 or 15 different ones, ranging from chocolate mousse to cheese and biscuits to ice-cream to custard tarts. Good desserts, on the whole, although the overall presentation had deteriorated somewhat by the time we got to them.

After washing lunch down with a much needed coffee we ask for the bill and prepare to depart. Bearing in mind the children had eaten for free, the total works out at roughly €36 a head. The buffet was just under €26 a head so that was €10 a head on drinks. Not unreasonable considering this is an all-you-can-eat situation.

All in all, this had been a nice lunch. The restaurant is warm and welcoming and the atmosphere, despite being busy, never felt chaotic.

The service, not normally a talking point with a buffet lunch, was poor. The waitresses who served us were polite and cheerful but that delay at the start in getting drinks was most irritating. There were plenty of them running around, I just feel their coordination and planning were off.

In food terms there were plenty of positives. Some of the dishes were delightful and one or two were exquisite. However, there were also one or two that were a bit on the bland side and temperature seemed to be a recurring issue.

I’d be lying if I said we hadn’t enjoyed it because we most certainly did. I just feel, for a restaurant in a five-star hotel, the overall meal hadn’t quite lived up to my admittedly high expectations.

All the right ingredients were there, they just lacked a little bit of polish.

And, on that note, I hand you back to Ed.

dougsdinners@timesofmalta.com

The scoring
When reviewing any restaurant I try to be as objective as possible and take into consideration all the different aspects which make for an enjoyable meal. The scores I give cannot be seen as a permanent result for a venue, but merely a reflection on how it performed on the occasion I was there. Also, it is important to note that comparisons between different restaurants’ marks should not be made. I score an establishment on how it performs within its own field, not against competitors in different catering sectors. For example, a cheap pizzeria that does what it does well is just as deserving of a high mark as a fine dining establishment would be.