Ed eats

La Nostra Padrona
87, Xatt is-Sajjieda,
Marsaxlokk
Tel: 2766 7720

Food: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Ambience: 7/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

Marsaxlokk on a Sunday morning is quite a bizarre concoction of sights, smells and sounds.

With remarkably polite and prompt service, it has bravely set itself apart from the tourist traps

The market seems to extend all the way around the bay, with stalls selling the most randomly put together items on one end and those selling fish on the other.

I understand the fruit and the veg stalls (although I don’t always get the pricing or the descriptions). Then there are stalls selling little trinkets like lighters in the shape of a gas bottle. The last thing I’d want my gas bottle to do is burst into flames.

I am quite happy to see lace tablecloths and not so thrilled about the crass tea towels with stories about the Italian lady who went to Malta and comically mispronounced absolutely everything. The stars of the show are the T-shirts with unlikely mating calls like ‘I enjoy good time’.

Not in a lifetime of documentaries have I experienced any animal in the wild that uses the equivalent of this phrase to attract the attention of the opposite sex.

I don’t think that particular T-shirt makes a valid contribution to evolutionary theory unless the theory considers sidesteps as a valid direction of travel.

We now have wooden trinkets, carved in China and bought for a dollar a piece, sold to us by someone who claims they’ve been handmade in sub-Saharan Africa. Vu cumprà?

Then the fish stalls start, selling more flies than fish. By the time I made it to Marsaxlokk last Sunday, there seemed to be more sea bream and sea bass than anything else. I wasn’t there to buy fish though. I wanted someone to cook it for me.

We walked along the seafront, where restaurants jostle for space and occupy the pavement with tables that make for al fresco dining. As long as summer decides it is here to stay, the popularity of these tables will retain their unbeatable occupancy.

We first tried heading into Southport. We walked all the way inside and no one of their staff bothered greeting us.

After standing around and feeling like fools, we eventually approached one of their staff members and asked for a table for two. The look was priceless.

Had I asked to attack him with a wirebrush he would not have looked so surprised.

In no uncertain terms he told us that there was no availability and that it would not be worth waiting. Out we headed, mildly embarrassed by the encounter.

This time we headed back towards the pjazza and stopped outside a restaurant that had attracted our attention earlier on.

La Nostra Padrona had tortelloni filled with scallop on the menu board outside and the interior looked snazzier than the other places, so we walked in. A table for two was available. So was a welcoming greeting and a warm smile. Lunch was looking better now.

The menus are quite a refreshing affair. Most of the places we’d walked past seemed to be geared towards tourists, with charmingly misspelled items on the menus and variations of fish and chips up where all could see them.

La Nostra Padrona has seen sense and done away with that nonsense. The menu has neonati fritters and pepate di cozze on the first page. A whole lot of choice suddenly made itself available.

While I’d driven down for fresh fish, the legions of flies on the fresh fish at the market had put me off. The tortelloni, on the other hand, had me all aquiver.

The better half had spotted a shellfish platter that is always a valid option when struggling to choose among which bottom-dwelling filter-feeder to consume. Have them all on one plate and choice is no longer an agony.

One dish would suffice for lunch we decided, having a look around us and spying rather generous portions at adjacent tables.

Another member of staff, just as polite and helpful as the girl who had led us to our table and helped us out with menus and drinks, asked whether we were ready to place our orders. Alas, they had just run out of the tortelloni I had been coveting.

Almost apologetically, she mentioned another item that was not on the menu – ravioli filled with monkfish. Once again I rejoiced and pounced upon this dish before a fellow diner stole the last portion.

A bottle of the ever cheerful Polena Donnafugata would provide refreshing and approachable company to the meal.

Within minutes we had a basket of fresh Maltese bread and a couple of other niceties to keep us going until our food arrived.

Olives with freshly crushed garlic tasted lovely. Next to them was a bowl of bean paste with a very generous dose of garlic and parsley. It could have been a broad bean paste. It could also have been a chickpea paste.

There was too much garlic for me to tell and this did not stop me from dipping grissini and galletti into it and enjoying every little bit. I’d be safe from all vampire threats for a fortnight.

Our mains were delivered in due course by yet another helpful member of staff. My ravioli looked generous enough and were served with the surprise addition of chunks of avocado, local prawns and fresh rucola. They were served in a very simple butter-based sauce with just enough stock to keep things interesting while allowing the ravioli to do most of the talking.

The monkfish isn’t the most talkative of flavours and was slightly subdued. It is almost crustacean-like in flavour when left to its own devices and living inside ravioli isn’t its most natural of habitats. The dish worked though, and I enjoyed every bite.

Across the table, the platter was quite impressive. Octopus, prawns, mussels, clams, surf clams and squid were generously piled up and I sampled it all in the name of research. Even more simplicity was to be found here and it is this simplicity that made the dish.

Elegance is knowing when to hold back and it is this discipline that retained all of the individual flavours. The chips were a bit of a letdown but there was more than enough littoral fauna to let them languish in the shadows, unnoticed and unmissed.

Right next to us sat the illustrious Edward de Bono and, had I worn a hat, I’d have gallantly tipped it to this venerable thinker. A sideways glance revealed that I was not the only Ed to be enjoying La Nostra Padrona’s fare.

We asked for the bill, not exactly a steal at €60, but fair enough for the quality and the quantity we’d been fed.

With remarkably polite and prompt service, this restaurant has bravely set itself apart from the tourist traps that close in on either side, and this courage should be reason enough to visit La Nostra Padrona.

If whoever is running this place has the sense to maintain a ­consistent level of service and to continue coming up with even moderately innovative dishes, it will be a place well worth ­returning to.

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