Ed eats
China Garden
Vault 2
Valletta Waterfront
Tel: 2122 7235
Food: 3/10
Service: 2/10
Ambience: 5/10
Value: 4/10
Overall: 3.5/10
There is something quite awkward about writing a review of this nature. I’m used to finding a little bit of positive in everything. If I weren’t able to spot the silver lining even when it’s hiding behind the darkest storm clouds, I’d have left Malta a long time ago, quitting the Third World for a nation with an actual infrastructure, one where people mind their own business when they’re meant to, and act in a considerate manner when interacting.
The beef, lamb and chicken were close to inedible. We tasted them, didn’t like them, and left more than half the dishes
Disappointment is, alas, part of our lives and the tale I tell today is one of practically unmitigated disenchantment. It starts, as many such stories do, with a party of four being in the wrong place at the wrong time to begin with – the Valletta Waterfront on a Sunday night.
Terrible, terrible things go on there on a Sunday night. Out of the water creep creatures that would, when featured on the Discovery Channel, cause most viewers to change station, these same creatures sufficiently amplified to have their cries reach the farthest vaults of this quaintly coiffed quay.
Yet, here we were, hungry and in time for an early dinner. We walked through quite briskly, avoiding the more crowded spaces and hoping for a quiet place to dine. We even walked past the display of tricked up cars that might have been for sale that night, odd as the choice of time and venue could be.
One of us, who will be called Tiffany for tonight for reasons she will be aching to know, had a strong desire for Chinese food, so the sight of a perfectly quiet Chinese restaurant was like a glimmering oasis to us desert travellers.
We stopped for all of 10 seconds to peek at the menu, proudly on display outside the front entrance, and were accosted by the Chinese man who seems to have the sole purpose of soliciting.
He pointed at one of the tables at the edge of the outside dining area and said that he had that table for four, right on the water’s edge, waiting for us. Seeing that not a single table was occupied, I believed him.
The menu looked like any other Chinese restaurant menu that is built to a formula but had a cunning addition that I fell for, hook, line, sinker and sesame prawn. Every item had a translation into Chinese.
I figured that if they were catering for their compatriots the authenticity of the food should be above average and that a minimal level of quality should be expected. We took the table so graciously offered and sat at the water’s edge.
The view was lovely, the weather pleasant and the music from six restaurants away just as irritating as it was when we walked by. The food would make up for it, I hoped.
Menus were delivered in total silence by a girl who looked decidedly Western so I guessed that while she was not Chinese, she could probably speak English. How else does one land a job that involves human interaction and the ability to understand diners?
The menus are very comprehensive, with page upon page of items that seemed to follow a pattern. Past the starters and the soups, a header announces the kind of meat followed by a list of ways in which it can be served. So, to take chicken as an example, there is chicken with a sweet and sour sauce, chicken with ginger and spring onion, chicken with black bean sauce, and so on. The same applies for beef, with almost the exact same sauces in the same sequence. Then there is pork, squid, prawn and lamb, all more or less following the formula.
There were a couple of items that one doesn’t encounter on every Chinese restaurant menu, like Steamed Chinese XiaoLongBao (sic). I wondered what he tasted like when steamed so this was definitely going down with our order for starters. The poor guy didn’t know what he was in for when he applied for the job. Being on the menu wasn’t quite what he’d bargained for.
We added fried seaweed with cashew nuts for the wheat-intolerant one, crispy (what’s wrong with the word crisp?) duck rolls since we planned to over-order main courses and skip the customary duck pancakes for middle course, and spring rolls because Tiffany claimed that a Chinese meal without spring rolls is like a day without Marmite, or something of the sort.
On to main courses we went for the beef Gum Pao because it sounds nice but also because we were after a dish that kicks back and this promised chilli and cashew nuts, with the added benefit of two little red peppers next to the name to signify that the dish would be very spicy.
The chicken with ginger and spring onion sounded zesty and refreshing, the squid with black bean sauce looked like it meant business, and the lamb, once again with ginger and spring onion, to compare with the chicken.
Finally, we added sweet and sour pork because Tiffany claimed that the best way of truly assessing a Chinese restaurant is to compare the most characteristic dish, the median flavour sample, the platonic Chineseness of Chinese food. One does not quibble with this kind of reason.
The same young lady, sadly quite a good-looking girl, took our orders in silence and vanished. She returned with two of those metal dish warmers that rely on the heat of two little tea candles to keep the meal warm. One of four candles was lit. She didn’t bother checking or rectifying.
The good Samaritan sitting next to me said the girl would probably light them when she delivered the food. He eventually lit them himself.
The starters made it to our table, once again in silence, and they looked decent. The crispy duck tasted of crispy oil, the fried seaweed was acceptable and the spring rolls tasted better when dipped in the satay sauce than when dipped in their own bright red sweet sauce.
There was no sign of XiaoLongBao. When we’d eaten the starters and decided that he had had enough of being fed to people, our silent movie star headed over with a bamboo steamer that contained the little steamed dumplings. The pastry was too thick for steaming but the insides tasted just lovely, with a citrus tang and a lovely firm texture to the meat. All hope was not lost.
Main courses arrived and our first issue was distinguishing between them. The Gum Pao and the lamb were distinguishable only upon close inspection, with chilli flakes suspended in the thickened goo that was probably the sauce as the only telltale. The chicken was in the same thickened goo and had the same veg with it but was at least pale as chicken breast normally is so it was easier to distinguish.
The squid looked the part, having been neatly scored in a chequered pattern, so as it curled upon itself while cooking it turned into a pleasingly patterned little roll. The thick black sauce suited the squid, happy to produce its own black liquid when threatened. Sweet and sour pork looked like sweet and sour pork, with battered cubes coated in a bright, red liquid.
The beef, lamb and chicken were close to inedible. We all tasted them, didn’t like them, and left more than half of the dishes. The squid was decent but not to everyone’s liking so we managed to consume three-quarters of the dish between us.
The sweet and sour pork was actually quite good, with a crisp batter on the outside and tender, flavoursome pork on the inside. The sauce was as good as it gets for this simple solution of sugar in vinegar. We added this to the rice and noodles and ate in silence, enjoying the view of the bastions across the silky smooth harbour.
Within minutes of finishing all we were prepared to eat, there was a spontaneous consent that we should ask for the bill and make a quick getaway.
The price we had to pay for the four of us to get away from the food and the music was €90 – a sum we gladly dug into our pockets for. And away we headed into the night, vowing not to return.
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