Ed eats

Cibo
Tigné Point,
Sliema
Tel: 7962 9262

Rising Sun Bar
20, Xatt is-Sajjieda,
Marsaxlokk
Tel: 2165 9072

Bavarian Sausage
mobile stand (usually at The Strand, Sliema)
Tel: 9943 2204

Today’s column is simultaneously a little more and a little less than a restaurant review. I spent the weekend with a friend who has lived in the UK all his life and spent the last decade in London.

We toured the island like good tourists and ate pretty much everything we could get our hands on. He’s been here before and so he wanted to taste pastizzi again, drink Cisk, and so on. I’m comfortable being a tourist in my own country so I had no problem with that.

While we bobbed around the place, we ate at several places – some of which are worth a mention – and I’ll cover a few briefly. This is more than a single review but less in depth than a single one affords to be. So I’m cheating you and paying for it at the same time. It sounds like a good deal to me and, by the time you’ve bought this paper, it is too late to complain. And this column has no customer service department.

By his own account, the most memorable meal was enjoyed at the eternally fabulous Rising Sun Bar in Marsaxlokk. I feel bad mentioning this little family-run gem for fear of increasing its popularity. I enjoy it more knowing it is practically a secret. We couldn’t decide between the octopus or the baby lampuki, so we ordered both.

Michael showed me the tiny lampuki that had been caught the night before and a few trill that had been caught that very morning. He added a few trill for good measure, saying we just had to taste them.

We sat and were treated like we were part of the family, with a mixture of good cheer, affection and the occasional request to pass a plate down the table. This is informality at its best. We ate piles of fresh Maltese bread with kunserva (tomato paste), olives and onions while we waited and drank pint after pint of cold beer. When the fish and the octopus were served, they were probably the best this island has to offer.

When we’d eaten more than we thought we could handle, we paid €20 each. How’s that for value?

The next memorable encounter happened at the festa in St Julian’s. My guest was all for a visit to the square and loved being immersed in the sights and the sounds of our traditions.

When it was all over, I headed straight towards the Bavarian sausage van that is normally in Sliema because I just love bratwurst and theirs is outstanding. I’ve always been treated to a disarming charm the guys who run the van pour all over every one of their customers. “Try my sausage,” says the back of their T-shirts, in a stab at cheeky German humour.

This time they surpassed themselves. By the time I got there, they had closed up, cleaned most of the van and were getting ready to leave. They spotted my disappointment and called me over. There was one sausage left, wrapped in foil, for one of the guys to take home.

They insisted on frying it up and preparing it for me, complete with mustard and crisp, fried onions. Sausage has never tasted better. And all they while, the men in cheeky T-shirts joked and smiled instead of cursing my soul to a cruel hell where sausages grow on trees that I just can’t climb.

We sat and were treated like we were part of the family, with a mixture of good cheer, affection and the occasional request to pass a plate down the table

When visiting Sliema, my friend asked whether we could eat as close to Tigné as possible to have a view of Valletta as we ate. I wanted an air-conditioned restaurant because I consider sticky heat to be intensely annoying. He wanted to eat outdoors because he didn’t know when he’d be seeing the sun next. I suggested Cucina del Sole because I figured I’d coax him into sitting inside where he could enjoy the view from within the cool restaurant.

We traipsed all the way across Sliema to find that the restaurant is closed for lunch during the week. I should have checked its website. Walking back, we thought of grabbing a quick bite at one of the restaurants in the pjazza at Tigné Point. The one closest to the open seas is called Cibo.

We wanted food, so in I trotted. Then I walked back out when I noticed I’d walked in alone, my friend firmly planted under one of the umbrellas outside. The shade and the breeze made this seating arrangement quite pleasant so I didn’t grumble. A young lady took our orders for drinks and gave us some time with the menus. They are decidedly Italian, with all dishes’ names written in Italian and all menu items derived from the Italian cookbook.

I was sold on the pizza cooked in a wood-burning oven while my friend was all for pasta with octopus. He’d loved the octopus in Marsaxlokk the day before and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that precious little could compare to that freshness.

I popped inside the restaurant for a while and was very happy to see that plenty of effort was given to the design, with copper globes (I’m presuming the Dixon variety rather than the original Roberto Menghi judging by the sheer number on display) illuminating the wood-clad interior that has a large and bright open kitchen at its core.

It has a bistro, or more likely an osteria theme going on and feels quite welcoming. The young lady returned to take our orders and I picked one of the few pizzas that didn’t enjoy an Italian name. Mine was called the ‘meat lovers’ and I picked it because it had prosciutto cotto on it apart from applewood-smoked bacon and Maltese sausage. I never order pizza with prosciutto crudo on it because cooking this in the oven defeats the purpose, but cotto is another matter altogether and I just love it.

We waited for a very reasonable 10 minutes and our food was served by another member of staff, as adept at performing his duties as the young lady had been and just as functional. We weren’t treated to anything that resembled friendliness but the job was done and done well. I suspect the place is much busier on the weekends, so service is tuned for speed rather than personality.

My pizza turned out to be much better than I’d expected it. The flavour of a wood-fired oven was there, the base was thin, crisp and dry, holding the toppings very capably. The Maltese sausage spilled coriander seed onto the pizza and lent its unmistakeable intensity to the mix. Bacon and ham tried hard to compete and, when they did, yielded a surprisingly delicate flavour.

The pasta was generous and laden with a tomato-based sauce that contained a decent amount of octopus. I’d never have picked this dish when a wood-fire is burning and unless I was somewhere like the Rising Sun Bar. But my friend has no such qualms and he slowly ate through, enjoying every bite. And that’s what really matters.

This time we paid €16 each, steep for a single plate and a beer each, but adequate for what must be an extremely expensive, and very enjoyable, location.

Off we headed, back to the airport, feeling the weekend had been far too short. We’d seen plenty, eaten more good food than we deserved, and decided we’d have to repeat the experience to try out all the lovely places I mentioned but didn’t find time to visit.

You’ll know if we follow through on this. There will be another three-for-one coming your way.

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

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