Ed eats
Dayfresh
Naxxar Road
Birkirkara
Tel: 2788 7727
Food: 8/10
Service: 6/10
Ambience: 5/10
Value: 6/10
Overall: 6/10
A short while ago I dedicated this page to what could be considered street food. I covered two, rather different, options for lunch that are essentially inexpensive. I was surprised that there should be any reactions to the column. After all, we all have lunch. And unless you’re earning more than most, there’s a limit to the daily spend one can allow oneself.
The reactions were polarised. One man who must have prepared many a ftira for me a few decades ago actually wrote in to show his appreciation for my having drawn attention to the wonderful world of food that’s quick to prepare, tasty, and inexpensive. A friend of mine said something to the effect of my having gone from reviewing restaurants to reviewing snack bars and indicated that he’d snob this column from now on. And these two set the tone for the rest of the reactions. There’s no pleasing everyone so it’s a good thing I don’t try to.
Today’s story is one that could, weirdly, please both factions. The story starts with me going out to lunch with two people to whom food means two different things. One of them lifts heavy bits of metal only to put them back in their place when he’s done with them. This adult form of playing with blocks and clearing them up takes a toll on one’s diet so he eats as much meat as he can to make sure he recovers from the strain.
The other victim likes food but detests cooking, eats sparingly and sensibly, and doesn’t find meat particularly appealing. What does one do in this case? There has to be a point where these proclivities meet. I made a half-hearted effort at thinking of the narrow sub-set of restaurants that would please both of them and, just as importantly, feed me. I then gave up and figured out that it would be tougher taking the alpha male to a tofu-on-a-stick place than it would be to take the healthy one somewhere where she could simply eat less than we do.
It would have to be something relatively quick, too. We had little time for lunch and wanted to dedicate the time to a chat we’d planned to have. I suddenly remembered this butcher/kebab/ grill/restaurant/café place that I’d been to a few times. It would serve the protein-hungry man quite well and would have plenty of options for the healthy one. In fact, I had him at the word ‘meat’ and we piled into a car before another word was said on the subject.
The location and the premise behind Dayfresh are unlikely. These guys are butchers and they must have realised that their expertise at selecting and butchering meat was being wasted if people didn’t quite cook whatever they sold properly. So they seized control of the entire supply chain, all the way from bits of animal to grilled meat on a plate, and solved the problem.
The result is a bit of an oddball restaurant. They’ve had the place ‘designed’, so there is printed wallpaper with quotes about food and about meat, often with a comically lackadaisical approach to grammar. The furniture is quite neat and includes chairs that appear to have been moulded out of recycled materials and into very neat and sturdy seating, pendant lighting, TVs playing a music channel for background music, and others showing a football match.
The range is vast and goes all the way from different styles of marinated rib steaks to bits of beef fillet on skewers and almost every way with chicken imaginable
All the food that’s available is displayed in two counters. One is a small version of the one you get at a butcher’s shop. It contains clearly labelled cuts of meat you can order and have grilled there and then or to take home and cook yourself. The other is a large version of the one you get at a kebab place. This one is filled with a wide variety of prepared and marinated meats.
Strangely, the significantly larger counter is not labelled so, when we attracted the attention of one of the men behind the counter, he had to describe every single item to us. The range is vast and goes all the way from different styles of marinated rib steaks to bits of beef fillet on skewers and almost every way with chicken imaginable. The items on display seem to change frequently and I’ve been there when they had Kobe beef burgers so I suppose there’s an adventurous streak going on.
We’re in the era of customisation so even the vast array of food on display was not enough for my companions. They wanted to try the grilled chicken with lemon and the one with barbecue sauce. They liked the idea of lamb fillets but they couldn’t possibly leave the fillet skewers untested. So they picked across the counter, with the man who was serving us happy to take these tailored orders. I just went with the French rack of lamb because I don’t come across it as often as I’d like to.
For sides, we indicated a preference for baked potatoes rather than fries and agreed that we’d let our man pick the rest of the vegetables. We added a couple of bottles of water to the order and settled in to wait for our food.
The kitchen is an open one, separated from the dining area by the counter, so the smell and sound of grilling meat gets one’s appetite going quite quickly. By the end of an hour inside there, it also adheres to your clothes but I suppose there is little one can do to solve this other than sealing off the kitchen completely. Also helping to whet our appetites was the basket of fresh bread and a little tub of bruschetta mix to go with it.
We were seated at one of three occupied tables so our food was prepared quite quickly. We’d ordered all lamb and beef rare, keeping the cooking time even shorter. I’m not one to order chicken breast because it is so ridiculously easy for me to prepare so I asked my companions what they thought about theirs. It was fine, they said, but didn’t quite say any more about it. I’d be concerned if they did.
They are slightly more enthusiastic in reactions to the beef though. The little skewers made of what I presume to be the trim from the fillet had been served closer to medium than to rare but the meat is so tender that this didn’t do anything to spoil them. I think that barbecue sauce is too intense for fillet so I only tried the one that wasn’t marinated and there was evidence of a pretty decent cut of meat to start with.
I watched the rapt expression that followed the first bite of lamb fillet across the table from me. The man who stares in the face of danger unblinking had been moved to little whimpering sounds of pleasure. I strategically chucked a very meaty lamb rib from my plate on to his and he returned the favour in the form of an inch-long section of the fillet.
The lamb was evidently the pick of the crop at our table. The fillet was good. Not special in the way the one at Ali Baba in Gżira is. That has moved me to the verge of tears. This was very good though, and had thoughtfully been very delicately seasoned. Possibly beating the lamb fillet in terms of enjoyment was my rack of lamb. It had been expertly butchered and just as expertly grilled so it was seared at a very high temperature on the outside and remained rare on the inside. It was lovely by any standards – I’d have been happy with this level of grilled lamb at a far more pretentious restaurant.
The sides were also generous and of a pretty high standard. The potatoes had been cut into long rectangles with a thick, square cross-section so they looked like chips but had been traditionally baked, the aubergine salad, with a hefty dose of garlic, was served cold and we also had a fresh salad to share. There’s no skimping on the ingredients here and this pays off.
By this time we were wondering why the place wasn’t as busy as we felt it should be. As we paid €20 each for our food we realised that it isn’t the kind of spend that most people would be comfortable with every day. Having said this, we could have chosen significantly cheaper food and got away with spending a tenner. But we’d rather spend more and eat well once in a while, and resort to inexpensive street food during the rest of the week.
And that’s probably why not every table in the house was filled – it is too pricey for street food and too informal for a restaurant so it depends on those who’d like to meet both expectations and are prepared for the compromise this represents.
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