Ed eats
Italianissimi Ristopizza
59, The Strand,
Sliema.
Tel: 2133 1866
Food: 6/10
Service: 4/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 5/10
Overall: 6/10
I loved reading Doug’s column last week. While I’m happy that he actually has a life, I’d like to read more of his approach to eating out. Although to be honest I doubt he simply eats out.
A little Italian man, shirt and tie and ripped jeans, dashed across the restaurant and greeted us so warmly that I forgot it was hailing outside
He leaves the house and embarks on an epic adventure, battling hordes of rabid zombies and irate leprechauns, all in the pursuit of feeding the family. He then condenses the resulting novel into a single newspaper page. Please Doug, give us some more.
This week I’ll exercise restraint and dive straight into my dining chronicles. Although to be true to my nature, I’ll start by describing meals other than the restaurant that this column is devoted to.
I obviously don’t write about every meal I consume outside my cave. There are only so many Sundays in a single week. I often return to places I’ve visited before and reviewed before, picking the ones that had given me good reasons to go back.
I’m occasionally disappointed by a dip in food or service quality. Whenever I encounter this inconsistency I vow never to return. After all, the number of meals I will consume in my lifetime is limited to a few thousands and I would hate to have wasted one of these occasions.
I thought it would be good if I reported repeat performances once in a while, simply to inform the darling readers about the more consistent places. One happy occasion was a return to Sako, the conveyor-belt sushi place in St Julian’s.
Once again there was plenty to go around (literally) and the conveyor was dotted with a pleasant variety of high-quality sushi at a reasonable price. Whoever is running the place deserves a hearty pat on the back.
If I were to extend the pat on the back to a standing ovation, this would go to Brown’s Kitchen at the Valletta Waterfront. The chef, a young man who rejoices in the name of Oswald, and who has had the privilege of having Andrew Fairlie as his mentor at the fabled Gleneagles, whipped up a surprisingly technical, if wholly approachable degustation menu. Had this been my first experience, they’d have scored even higher. They’re now only a proper wine menu away from excellent.
And now to the matter at hand. While toasting to the birthday celebrations of a dear friend (and occasionally accomplice), he casually mentioned having eaten an excellent tagliata di bufalo just an hour before.
I made sure my drink hadn’t been spiked again and asked him to repeat that. It turns out that the oddly named Italianissimi Ristopizza in Sliema is the place to go to for grilled buffalo meat. Fast-forward 18 hours and there I was, battling with parking on The Strand.
He had warned me that the place was nothing fancy and had been uncharacteristically kind. Vinyl tablecloths reflect the multi-coloured Christmas fairy lights as they blinked from their perch, wrapped around a huge mirror.
A little Italian man, shirt and tie and ripped jeans, dashed across the restaurant and greeted us so warmly that I forgot it was hailing outside. In 30 seconds he had more than made up for the awful décor.
He made sure we were comfortable and settled us in, almost fussing in his eagerness to welcome us to the restaurant, and he provided menus and some space to decide, reassuring us that he was at our service should we need any information whatsoever.
The menus are an odd affair, starting with simple antipasti and pasta, going on to the meat section and ending with pizza. The meat section has two ways to buffalo and two ways to beef. Pizza is available by the metre (or parts thereof, depending on the number of people sharing).
We were dead set on eating buffalo and decided we’d have both the fillet and the tagliata. Then we turned the pages back to decide on starters.
I slowly read through the list and stopped at the linguine con colatura di alici. That’s not a plate you see every day and made my choice quite easy. The sensible eater at the table chose a simple insalata caprese.
We were served an amuse-bouche, for better want of a phrase, of toast with a tuna sauce and a small timbale of potato and cheese. The caprese salad had a generous portion of exquisite buffalo mozzarella but was atop a bed of lettuce and sweetcorn that did absolutely nothing to the dish. Some things are better left alone and a caprese is one of them. The linguine, cooked al dente, had been treated to a very enthusiastic portion of colatura and had added anchovies to boot. Now if you’ve ever experienced colatura di alici in its unadulterated liquid form you will know that it is a wickedly potent liquid, enough to make a brave man cry in its undiluted form.
Two tablespoons are enough for four people if the colatura is the main ingredient. I found the amount used in this dish quite overwhelming but decided to brave the dish and show the liquid essence of a hundred anchovies that I was man enough.
While we waited for the buffalo meat, Risi e Bisi, the recipe show, was on TV at quite an impressive volume, and it kept my quota of weekly food programmes neatly topped up. I didn’t have enough time to learn the entire method for preparing a torta di riso because our buffalo was on its way from the kitchen.
The tagliata di bufalo, thinly sliced strips of buffalo loin, is served on a ‘lava’ dish that cools down once every lunar eclipse. This is designed to keep scalding your mouth until the very end and makes sure meat overcooks so that your meal gets progressively worse unless you eat quite quickly. We’re not the type to dilly dally with our food so were not in for too much trouble.
The fillet is another matter altogether. According to a manifesto by the buffalo rearers association (there is one in Italy), buffalo meat is higher in protein, lower in fat and retains more water than other meats, making it juicy without being fatty. This fillet proves them absolutely right and the slab of meat on my plate was absolutely excellent and well worth returning for.
Our main courses were served with grilled aubergine, unremarkable roast potato, and more of the lettuce and sweetcorn salad that once again could easily have been foregone.
Also providing helpful and friendly service was an Italian lady who gently pushed us in the direction of a tiny dessert. This turned out to be a tiny chocolate éclair, a little ball of chocolate and coconut, and a shotglass of meloncello. The combination was excellent and gave a pleasantly sweet parting shot to the meal.
Upon the recommendation of our helpful host, we drank a delightful piedirosso from Campania that is also reasonably priced at €20. The beauty that is buffalo fillet is priced at €22. Unreasonably highly priced are the pasta and starter dishes so that the bill for two of us hit the €80 mark.
The buffalo fillet is well worth returning for but I will definitely not make an entire meal out of it again. Not at that price and not with flashing Christmas lights. If Italianissimi were a band, and with a name like that they’d make it to Sanremo, I’d consider buying the single but would never put up with the album.
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