Ed Eats

Mambo Beach Club
Triq Ramlet
L-Armier
Tel: 7738 2359

Food: 4/10
Service: 6/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 6/10
Overall: 6/10

At this time of year, I normally try to escape to a cooler climate for a short while. This year I stayed put. I even had a few idle days around the holiday and this presented me with an excellent opportunity to be lazy. One must never take a moment of laziness lightly because, well, life is short and all that.

I wound up being a tourist in my own country and, as much as I could, tried to observe what was going on around me with the eyes of someone who visits our lovely islands for a brief break.

And through this lens, bits of the week were pleasant and others horrifying. I won’t go into detail because you most likely know exactly which the nasty parts are.

It is interesting to view food through this lens though. It looks like those who turn up from a country with a well-developed kitchen seek their own cuisine when they’re on holiday. I suppose it is comforting to have one familiar aspect to your holiday when everything else is quite literally foreign to you.

There are instances when this just isn’t possible. If you’re marooned on a beach with no more than a kiosk for miles around, there’s little you can do to seek familiar sustenance – you’re stuck with what’s available. Luckily, we’re enterprising folk. So where there’s room for one kiosk we manage to squeeze in at least four.

On one of my tours, I stopped by Għadira Bay for lunch, mainly because I was curious about Munchies. The place is more than an upgraded kiosk and has a proper terrace with nifty triangular awnings for shade and a proper menu. We landed a table just on the edge of the terrace and a view of the entire bay, having been seated by a polite and efficient man who I presume was the duty manager.

Then we were ignored for 20 minutes, with patrons who’d arrived after we did enjoying their lunch while we sat with closed menus and not a bottle of water in sight. By this time I was starving and quite irritated, so I got up and walked away.

I got on the phone with The Omniscient Man and he recommended that I visit the newly-refurbished Mambo Beach Club in Armier. He hadn’t been, so he refused to speak about the food but said that the location and the building itself were well worth a visit. He was quite cautious about the food – it could be anything – and being the proper gourmand that he is was taking no responsibility for what we ate.

The little bay is just a short drive away, so we were there in no time and had been seated at a table on the water’s edge within seconds. The building is a cheekily colourful pastiche in moulded concrete that, quite appropriately, screams beach club. And by my estimate, there was no more than a metre between the edge of our table and the sea that lazily lapped at the sandy beach.

A minute later there was a young lady at our table, taking orders for drinks. She cheerfully suggested a cocktail from their extensive list, what with being so close to the sea and all that?

I didn’t need convincing but wasn’t up for a sweet, fruit-based cocktail so I played safe and ordered a negroni. The better half ordered something that sounded more like an ice cream but had alcohol in it.

There was no more than a metre between the edge of our table and the sea that lazily lapped at the sandy beach

We looked through the food menus and they’re really quite an extensive and well-organised affair. Every section has its own colour code and lists dozens upon dozens of dishes so that the book feels like a mail-order catalogue from the 80s. I ploughed through pizza and pasta and salads and sandwiches, hoping for something more aquatic in provenance, seeing that we could practically catch our own lunch. Finally, at the back of the menu, there was a little fish section and we picked the shellfish platter that serves two. The other choices were salmon, stuffed squid, octopus stew and other stuff you don’t need to be so close to the sea for.

Another lady turned up to take our orders and I asked if the seafood in this dish was fresh. She assured me that it was all fresh. Priced at €25 for both of us, this was quite unlikely, but I picked it anyway and settled in to enjoy my cocktail and have a look around me.

The bay isn’t much bigger than a paper napkin yet there are six built-up concessions serving food and a handful of food trucks and ice cream vans to fill the gaps. Somehow, there is enough business for this ecosystem to thrive in relative isolation from the outside world. There is no passing-by trade here. You’re here because this is your final destination.

From my vantage point I could hear squeals of delight and jellyfish bite and watch the entire gamut of humanity laid bare in the cruel revelation that is swimwear. The only people wrapped up were walking up and down the beach selling necklaces and sunglasses from baskets full of the stuff.

A busload of elderly women pushed past our table. Time had shrivelled and weathered them but did nothing to control their tempers, so they bickered and argued and agreed about nothing and in general had a whale of a time. Watching them have a go at each other made the 15 minutes it took to deliver our food pass really quickly.

Our food arrived with a flourish and two members of the team helped organise our tableware to fit the long dish in the centre of the table and place a generous plate of chips next to it. The dish is quite huge and packed with aquatic fauna. There are mussels, clams, prawns, surf clams, razor clams, octopus, battered squid and a sliver of swordfish.

I tried a mussel first and it was overcooked and tasted a little weird. Then I picked a clam. It had fared the same. Predictably, the surf clams were even worse. I turned to the fried squid. This had thoughtfully been placed on top of the shells so it remained dry and crisp and free from the liquid that the rest of the ingredients were swimming in. The squid was lovely and the contrast was so stark that I gobbled up the lion’s share of it. I then turned to the chips and ate as many of them as it took for me to feel satiated.

The better half didn’t hate the shellfish as much as I did and ate a few more bits and pieces than I did. While watching me suffer she pointed at the table across the terrace from us. The clever men at that table had ordered pizza and it looked quite lovely. I also looked at their faces and they seemed delighted at the quality of their food.

Perhaps it is my fault after all. I’d turned up at a beach club and ordered the most ambitious dish on the menu. If I’d gone to my fishmonger and ordered that quantity of seafood, there’s no way I’d have walked away with a bill of €25. I only take part of the blame though. If you’re so close to the sea and include this item on your menu, then you’d better make a jolly good job of it. Being honest about the freshness of its ingredients would also be a neat touch.

We wound up paying €40, the bill pushed by the price of the two cocktails we’d ordered. The location is quite splendid and, luckily, all the other tables I looked at as I walked back to the car were filled with people who looked quite happy with their food.

They’d ordered beach food like burgers and pizzas, an approach that’s a practically universal failsafe. I was the one who’d been a fool when ordering but then, isn’t this what one does on their first day as a tourist?

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

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