Ed eats
Amigos
Dingli Street,
Dingli Circus,
Sliema
Tel: 2133 2480
Food: 7/10
Service: 8/10
Value: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Making a living is unfortunately a process that takes up an unfairly large portion of our waking hours. By the time I’ve shrivelled into a creature unable to render a useful contribution to society, the retirement age will finally have tipped the average life expectancy so a coffin will become an essential part of our office furniture.
The timely delivery of generous, tasty and inexpensive food is the cornerstone of every lasting friendship
Luckily, I happen to fit within that tiny percentage of people who actually enjoy their job. I wake up every morning and look forward to most of the ways in which I occupy my day.
If you want to know whether this applies to you, take a simple test. If you were to win a million, would you quit your job? I know I won’t. I’ll probably spend that million making my office more of a playground than a useful office.
For has it not been established that it is the prerogative of fledgling millionaires to make spectacularly poor use of their money?
My chance of winning any number of millions equates precisely to zero. I’ve never bought a ticket. So to make even the toughest day a little bit brighter, I make sure I eat well.
Nothing brightens up a morning like having an interesting lunch to look forward to. And a happy afternoon is much easier to achieve when your belly purrs contentedly as it digests a tasty lunch.
When I’m out and about I often take the most unlikely of detours to include a particular meal. On Monday I knew I’d need something from St Julian’s, timing my appointment around lunchtime to pick up whatever the Sicilian chef at Ma Che Bontà had prepared that day. On Tuesday we all decided we’d order a take-out so the great deliberation began.
The clamouring for a New York Best burger (yet again) started, silenced by the protests of those who would normally be ‘volunteered’ to drive all the way and back. It would have to be lunch that could be delivered to our office, sparing us the time of a return trip.
The options included a number of pizza places and Amigos quickly pushed itself to the top of the list. Not only do they deliver pizza for those craving it, but they also serve a variety of dishes, including their mythical Super Supreme taco. Those who had tasted it before were ordering it again, so in no time there was a chorus of “me too” for this particular menu item.
The rest of us foraged around their website, downloading a file that contains their full menu. I understand they might be pleased with their rather awkwardly designed menu but forcing users to navigate a pdf makes the experience all the more awkward.
I’m picky with this sort of thing. The clue in the name User Interface is a pretty easy one to understand, and, in 2012, transgressions aren’t easy to excuse. Neither are typos.
I asked around about the size of the Grande as applied to tacos on this menu and was told I could probably manage one-and-a-half. The Regular size comes in handy as a top-up.
The Amigos Mixed Super Supreme (for such is the full name of this mammoth taco) sounded tempting if overwhelming. Beef, chicken and peperoni are just the beginning. It goes on to include bell peppers, tomatoes, sour cream and melted cheese. The Spicy Pork Taco, equipped with a little green chilli pepper as a warning sign, promised tantalising spice and a more approachable set of fillings.
The Tandori (sic) beef also sounded promising, with spicy beef and yoghurt as well as tandoori sauce and green peppers. All it would need is added fresh chilli (at an additional €0.60) and happiness would take two distinct forms at lunchtime.
I sent my e-mail to Mandy, the mindfully meticulous manager of my meals and those of others. She placed the call at 10.45am and was informed that delivery would take place between 12.30pm and 12.45pm but not a minute before.
So I got back to work, wearing the smug smile of he who knows he has no need to worry about lunch any more.
True to their word, the Amigos delivery guy turned up at 12.35pm with all we’d ordered and a 1.5-litre soft drink that we hadn’t. It turns out that orders over €50 qualify for this little bonus. Sweet.
Within half a minute, all those who’d ordered food poured into the kitchen, sorting out the pizza boxes that hosted the large tacos from the smaller paper boxes that held the regular ones.
My Spicy Pork taco was inside one of the smaller boxes, wrapped in waxed paper that was in turn wrapped inside a paper bag. Getting to this little Russian doll of a wrapper while everyone around me was already into their second bite made me feel like I’d missed the starter pistol.
The little green chilli pepper on the menu is intended to shrug responsibility should someone think a sprinkle of black pepper is too hot. I like an intense heat to be present when ordering spicy food and none of this was forthcoming.
The spicy pork tastes suspiciously like Maltese sausage and, while not quite the Mexican dish I was expecting, turned out to be reasonably enjoyable.
As predicted, the regular portion was not quite enough so it was now time for my Tandoori beef, ordered in the large portion and with added fresh chilli. The Tandoori sauce is a very bright pink presence that glows out of the centre of this large, quartered taco. It is the kind of pink that makes fake Danish salami glow in the dark and have expiry dates measured in aeons. There is a bit of Keith Richards inside every man so I proceeded undeterred and took my first bite.
Just like the other taco, the shell retained its crunch despite the generous filling and the time it takes to deliver the food from their lovely restaurant on Dingli Street. The filling was tasty, with a hint of Tandoori spices and a pleasantly zesty citrus presence.
There was no hint of chilli heat though, and this time I mentioned it to the largely silent room. Mandy admitted she’d forgotten that tiny detail – the addition of precious chilli to my taco had slipped past her. I promised never to forget, and never to forgive this omission. Then I ate my taco.
The silence in the room has only ever been outdone by that induced by a fresh delivery of New York Best or the occasional bounty from The Donut Factory. Lunch is normally a happily raucous affair, with good-natured jesting and verbal jousting creating the soundtrack to our daily ftira. The more enjoyable a meal, the deeper and more sacred the silence.
We swear our lifelong allegiance to those places that induce perfect silence, the hushed admiration that turns every mouth in the room into a shrine to the capability of the kitchen that causes collective bliss.
Having enjoyed our meal and paid an average of €6 each, we decided we might not marry off our taste buds to Amigos but that we’ll all remain quite close friends. After all, the timely delivery of generous, tasty and inexpensive food is the cornerstone of every lasting friendship.
You can send e-mails about this column to ed.eatson@gmail.com or follow @edeats on Twitter.