Ed eats

ID Cafe
4/5 The Strand,
Sliema
Tel: 2134 4791

Food: 6/10
Service: 6/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Ages ago, back when I inhabited shores where no one spoke our language or even knew where our lovely island was, I used to spend quite a lot of my free time in cafes and similar establishments. Then I was blessed with the luxury of having some time to spend actually living rather giving up most of my life to make a living.

My ciabatta was huge and had been split into two neat halves, served on a lovely rectangular glass dish

One of my favourite haunts was on the first floor of a massive bookshop. It was a wonderful escape from the gritty reality of the city and there I sat, surrounded by millions of pages that had all sorts of wisdom written upon them, wallowing in the immensity of the written word and the intoxicating aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

The bench-like seating was upholstered in a deep, blood red. The walls were a deep shade of blue. Warm lighting, the rustle of pages and the swishing of aprons completed the picture.

As long as I ordered a coffee every half hour or so, I was free to sit and read my latest acquisition or just scribble into notebooks to fool onlookers into thinking they were observing the next Hemingway.

If you think that the comfort of a regularly inhabited cafe can be called a home away from home, I can firmly attest to the contrary. At home you brew your own coffee, clean your own mugs and, if you feel like eating something at some point, you have to prepare it yourself. Nothing beats the lazy stupor induced by a familiar cafe. Sitting at home alone especially so.

For a long time I’ve resisted the temptation of considering cafes as a valid subject for review. Most cafes are virtually indistinguishable to me.

They serve coffee that varies from acceptable to appalling. They serve identical sandwiches and sad excuses for salads. Luckily, the Maltese palate means they normally serve decent sweets.

I’m generalising here, and I know that exceptions do exist, yet for the most part my experience is unremarkable.

One Saturday afternoon, I was in Sliema, catching up with errands and generally being pushed around by crowds of people whose errands must be much more important than mine. I hadn’t had lunch, knowing that the area I would be patrolling is densely populated by cafes and restaurants, so a meal would be a very easy achievement.

Despite this seemingly endless choice, the star of the show is normally the little kiosk-on-wheels in the car park on The Strand that is cheerfully bedecked with the Bavarian blue and white chequered flag.

The German guys who run the show serve the best bratwurst this side of Munich and do so with such cheer and good humour that every sausage consumed is a joy.

They even serve the right beer to go with their wurst. If they had more seating, there is little that could be done to keep me from sticking to their fare. They deserve this special mention and I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone give them a shot at least once.

I needed to sit however, and I also needed a coffee. So I figured I’d eat something at one of the cafes where seating was a certainty and then, should I have room for more, I’d cross the road and have currywurst for dessert. I avoided the really busy cafes that stretch between the bottom of Bisazza Street and all the way in the direction of Tigné because I wasn’t in the mood for having strangers sit on my lap unless I was at liberty to assess their looks first. We headed in the other direction and ducked into ID Cafe.

I’d been there before, for coffee and cake. I was tempted by the little cupcakes that look the part and was disappointed that they looked much better than they tasted.

This time, however, I was hungry, and hoped the food would be decent. The popularity of the little place gave me hope and I was happy to find a little table inside the cafe and away from the madness and heat outside.

I’m not quite sure what they had in mind when naming the place but I could not help thinking of the Freudian association of ID. I’ve heard of desserts described as ‘decadent’, so one presumes that following this steep decline could lead to the very essence of ID.

Maybe Baudelaire rubbed shoulders with Wilde at this very spot (a very young Wilde if we’re to be strict with chronology), and Freud sat at a table years later, digging deep into the roots of it all, and thus inspired, named part of his model after the cafe. It could also be the other way around.

The cafe definitely looks the part. It has been tastefully decorated and excellent use is made of the restricted floor space. A counter with food and sweets on display makes the menu practically redundant – not a bad thing, considering how dreadful the menus look when compared to the attention that has been paid to the interior.

I was dying for a carbohydrate load so I picked their ID special, a ciabatta with steak and cheese and other lovelies that was, unfortunately, sold out.

I settled for the next best – a ciabatta with bacon, omelette, cheese, mushrooms and fried onion, served with chips and coleslaw. It sounded very much like something I’d pick up at any snack bar around the country with a far less Freudian moniker. And that I’d pay €2.50 for. I wondered what the extra €4.50 would translate into.

I was accompanied by the health-conscious kind of person who walks into a snack bar and orders a salad. She then walks out with her stomach grumbling. I don’t get it. Luckily, I don’t even try to. She was having a smoked salmon salad and managed to look simultaneously smug and wistful. See why I don’t get it?

We added a soft drink each and prepared for a wait. The place was busy and the man who seemed to be running the place rushed from table to table like a pinball.

He manages an incredible pace and looks extremely efficient. In his effort to be efficient, he passed by our table a number of times. Then this other man, who had so far been behind the counter, approached our table, smiling in that honest and heart-warming kind of way, and asked what we’d like to eat. We placed our order with him and he headed off to sort it out.

Within minutes he was back with the lot. I wanted to hug him. My ciabatta was huge and had been split into two neat halves, served on a lovely rectangular glass dish.

I took a quick look and guessed that, despite my hunger and the ease with which I consume industrial quantities of food, I’d manage half of it.

The bacon was good. Bacon is always good. The melted cheese was great as was the omelette. It is a pity that there was no sign of mushrooms or onions. The chips had been translated into crisps and occupied their own segment of the glass dish. Yet another segment hosted the little tub of coleslaw. I ate half of the ciabatta and felt comfortable. So I ate the other half. The bread is extremely light and, despite its impressive size, does not actually weigh you down.

The salad had a generous serving of smoked salmon on top of a bed of baby lettuce and was decorated with capers. It fit the description on the menu, was served with plenty of brown bread, and in general performed its duty capably.

We ordered coffee and this time our orders were taken by the very busy man who took the time to stop, smile at as and, for a very brief moment, make us feel like we were his only clients. That takes skill.

At €12 each this is not exactly a steal but I was happy to pay the price for sitting in such a lovely cafe in what must be a very expensive location. It does not have the dark and inaccessible personality that its name implies, either. For all its lovely looks and fancy location, ID Cafe is surprisingly accessible, quick to deliver its goods and almost priced to match.

You can send e-mails about this column to ed.eatson@gmail.com or follow @edeats on Twitter.