Ed eats

Chez Amand
Triq il-Qbajjar,
Qbajjar,
Marsalforn
Tel: 2156 1188

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

Finally, summer is shaking its resolve. Its purpose this year was to turn me into a puddle and it came very close to succeeding. And before summer is out, I am dragged to Gozo a few times, because somehow Gozo is meant to be visited in the summer.

I’m one of those who thinks our smug little sister island is much more suited to winter forays. It is verdant and tranquil in winter, and induces that sort of terribly lazy mood I wish I could drag out for a few decades of decadence and irresponsibility. The food is better in winter, too. There are fewer tourists, fewer restaurants open and the food feels somehow more local.

But I was bundled into the back of a car with little mercy and I silently endured the two-hour trip to Gozo as the sun threatened to melt the tarmac. At some point during what turned out to be a pleasant afternoon, I started to worry about dinner.

I remembered having dinner at Chez Amand over a decade ago. I vaguely recalled enjoying it, so I called and reserved a table for three. I was with two particularly clever ladies who share a number of passions, so I was resigned to an evening of being a polite spectator as they engaged in deep conversation over matters I couldn’t hope to fathom. Food would help.

Parking in Qbajjar was quite easy and we were happy to see that we were seated on the edge of the second extension to the restaurant. There are tables on the terrace just outside and another set of tables on the street just beyond the terrace. We were effectively corralled with planters, and this is all that separated us from the sparse traffic.

The place was quite packed and another restaurant that’s just adjacent was also reasonably full of diners. I hadn’t pictured the little bay to be such a popular spot. It is really quiet though, and enjoys a still charm to it that belies the short distance there is to the mayhem of Marsalforn.

We were greeted by a young lady who was efficient and polite, even if she seemed to be handling most of the outside tables single-handedly. She was with us to take our order for water, to bring menus, return with the specialities and deliver an amuse bouche. She wouldn’t take our orders though, and told us that her colleague would be with us in a moment for that.

We looked through the menus and the separate sheet with specialities. The food is mainly Mediterranean with a couple of French and Belgian specialities. The ladies were all for the fish.

The lampuki dish was served with a slice of watermelon for added colour and flavour.

One picked the lampuki and the other the fresh squid. I recalled eating meat here before, and the daily specials included a filet mignon with their own Béarnaise, so I deviated from the apparently chosen course, knowing I’d suffer where the wine was concerned.

I remembered having dinner at Chez Amand over a decade ago and vaguely recalled enjoying it

Neither of them felt they could handle a starter, so I did as I was taught as a child – condemn them internally while retaining an outward appearance of tolerance. We also ordered a bottle of Marsovin’s Antonin Blanc. It is made out of grapes grown in a valley that probably shares a postcode with the table we were seated at and is an excellent white, so we couldn’t go wrong. Well, the ladies couldn’t. I decided I would drink my ration before the main course turned up. That way, everyone’s a winner.

Getting to order food wasn’t as easy. Once again, the girl who had greeted us initially assured us that her colleague would be with us shortly. All was not as it should be with the front of house.

The lady who turned up to take our orders walked up to our table and stood there, paper and pencil in hand. She didn’t look at us or say anything, so we figured we should just speak our orders in her general direction.

This worked and we managed to engage in the limited conversation necessary to place our orders. It might have been my hair that upset her.

Our amuse bouche was a vol-au-vent filled with what was described as a salmon mousse that wasn’t actually a mousse. It was a sort of mash of salmon and plenty of lemon inside a cold vol-au-vent that wasn’t special but served as a welcome bit of zest to our palates.

It also helped fill the rather long wait between our order and the time our main course was served. This is to be expected when one has skipped a starter but my survival instinct kicked in before I was foolish enough to point this out.

The presentation across our table had been well planned and expertly executed, a factor that really contributes to the level to which a meal is enjoyed.

My steak was rather large, particularly for a fillet, and the sauce served quite traditionally in its own saucière on the side.

I started with the vegetables, which were neatly arranged around the steak, doubling as an attractive garnish. Impressed, I moved to the steak. It had been cooked blue as I’d requested it, but was quite a pedestrian cut so I had to cut around the more stringy bits. The sauce was quite lovely, if a little too acerbic for my liking. It did make the meat more enjoyable though, and I quite uncharacteristically coated my steak with sauce, making my way through most of it in this manner.

There was much more joy coming from the grilled squid side of the table, so I cunningly swapped the last third of my steak for a third of the squid. This being quite a large squid to start with, I couldn’t exactly complain.

It was pretty decent, cooked quite simply with white wine, olive oil, garlic and herbs. Alas, the sides of salad and baby potato had all but vanished by the time I managed to requisition the dish.

The sides on this and the lampuki dish were even more elaborate than mine, including little niceties such as a slice of watermelon for added colour and flavour.

The lampuki dish was quite an ambitious portion, with two fish grilled and laid side by side, served on the bone as we’d asked it to be. The fish had been quite masterfully grilled for the most part, even if this meant that the tails were slightly overcooked. One of them was diligently picked apart and consumed. The other made its way back to the kitchen.

The bill for €30 per person is pretty fair, particularly when the price of the wine is taken into consideration. The food looked great and did the trick, quite neatly for the most part.

The experience is quite bland though. There is nothing that really ties the place together, and the sheer density of tables combine with the slightly frantic service to make the place feel like a restaurant at a beach resort.

Gozo happens to be packed with little gems that are a joy to discover, so Chez Amand needs to do a little bit more if it is to warrant a day trip all to itself.

As it stands, it could be a great place for an optional excursion to one of the few tranquil spots a Gozo summer has to offer.

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