Ed eats

Cheeky Monkey Gastropub
Dawret il-Qawra
Qawra
Tel: 2354 3853

Food: 6/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 6/10
Value: 6/10
Overall: 6.5/10

There are some jokes you just have to be there for. They’re hilarious in context but they don’t quite work well if repeated later on. You normally realise this a little too late in the delivery and find yourself forced to plough on through to the bitter end.

This applies particularly to in-jokes, like those running gags that you have with a set of friends or colleagues, and that don’t quite translate outside the confines of those in the know. There’s one of these that I’ll explain, just to illustrate the point.

It started with us welcoming a new colleague to work and coming up with a silly prank for him to fall for. We said we’d take him to this awfully fancy place we go to when we go out for office drinks. Then we pulled the ‘gastropub’ term on him and he was all fired up. We then took him to the trashiest of bars we could think of, leaving only when he was steeply inebriated.

The joke lies in the contrast between the utter filth of the place we carry out this event at and the implications that the word ‘gastropub’ carries with it. The portmanteau has echoes of those fancy pubs that sprang up in London a couple of decades ago. This attracted the hip and the hipster, the gourmand and the wannabe, and they had a good, long run. Then other things came along and the gastropub stopped being a fashion item. The good ones remained and the others split into three: pubs, restaurants and Western-Union-stickered internet cafés.

So when I heard a friend mention his having dined at a gastropub, I was mildly curious. Could it be that an actual gastropub has graced our shores? He said he’d enjoyed it and was cautiously optimistic about the experience I’d have. So I dragged him along for lunch and seven of us ended up descending on the place.

I liked the name, Cheeky Monkey, but I wasn’t sure about the location. It’s bang in the middle of what I call the aluminium mile – that stretch of hotels along the Qawra coast that for decades stood as a monument to hotels designed with a spreadsheet, aluminium apertures and all-inclusive package tourism. It was designed to attract tourism in the most foul of ways – by offering the cheapest holiday on this hemisphere.

If your idea of a holiday is escaping to a place where you’re sure there will be the Premier League on TV at a bar that’s as similar to your local as it gets, except that the beer’s cheaper, then you’re probably not fussed about the food.

Luckily the Cheeky Monkey was nice and cool inside. It looks good, too. They’ve themed the place so it’s mainly made of natural wood and has plenty of barrels and pipework to give a hint of a brewery.

I liked the name but wasn’t sure about the location

We were seated very quickly by a very helpful member of the team, and this level of care set the tone for the rest of the service. The man who took care of us was backed by an able bar, too, so our drinks were promptly delivered. The place was not really busy, but the team looks like it can handle much more than we were throwing at it.

The music in the background was, for the most part, dreadful. They were playing those summer dance hits that are annoying on the day they’re released, and this had us raising our voices slightly to be understood. I get that there’s a ‘pub’ in the name, but the ‘gastro’ bit takes precedence at lunchtime.

The ‘gastro’ bit is under-represented in the menu. There are a couple of interesting items, but for the most part the menu plays safe. A couple of Belgian beers add a sparkle to the beer list, and it then goes on to become a little more interesting than the food menu. There’s even a four-beer sampler for those who fancy feeling the full force of the Flemish foursome.

I settled for the ‘posh fish and chips’ while around me orders were being made across the menu, from pasta to salads and, quite naturally, to burgers. As I watched the process I realised that the menu played safe, and this is much more suited to the Cheeky Monkey audience than, say, an awfully hip gastropub in Shoreditch.

Our food was all served at once and by a number of members of the team, so we went from empty table to piping-hot food in a matter of seconds. Once again, the front of house was making the day.

I dug into my fish and chips, eating quickly and hoping to uncover the posh bits. The fish itself was moist and delicate, but the batter was burdened with the weight of oil from a rather shoddy fry. The sauce was pretty typical and the chips were good, but not great. They’ve really tried with the presentation, though, serving the fish on a faux newspaper to mimic times gone by and splitting the fillet into four manageable pieces rather than one large bit that makes a mess inevitable. It’s just a drier fry away from what I’d expect of a gastropub.

I was surrounded by people who know me well, so they systematically, and slightly sullenly, passed on forkfuls of their food for me to try. The pasta with lamb mince and anchovies was actually quite an interesting and satisfyingly savoury dish, but I’m not sure I could consume the entire plate.

There were mixed but favourable opinions about the burger. I’m not keen on the sausage-like consist-ency you get with a double or triple mince, but this doesn’t take much away from the burger. It is generous in portion, moist and tender, and cleverly seasoned so it satisfies without being too salty.

Around the table the food was generous, slightly imaginative, satisfying and pretty well-executed. The exception was the pie. It was watery and thin and quite a poor representation of this founding pillar of pub food everywhere. The steak was quite tender, but this alone does not a pie make.

We had our fill of food and drinks and paid under €20 each, so you’re not paying too much for fancy pub grub. As gastropubs go it is not astounding but it does the trick.

Perhaps more importantly, the patrons who stay in the vicinity when they’re on holiday are getting much more than they’d expect. And what better way is there to keep them coming?

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