Ed eats

Drift Café/Meze
Tal-Ibraġġ Road,
Ibraġ
Tel: 2713 8540

Food: 6/10
Location: 7/10
Service: 8/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

Humans are weird creatures in so many ways. I could fill the pages of this hallowed publication with the ways in which I believe this to be true, but I’ll exercise some restraint. After all, some of you might want to get to the sports pages at some point. I’ll just briefly delve into the principle of rarity.

If something is rare, we value it more. Depending on how rare or inaccessible it is, we can go all the way to coveting it. If I were to apply unshakeable Spock logic to this, I’d say that if something is rare, there is a good reason for it to be so and so we should want less of it. There are only so many white truffles on earth at any one point, for instance, and this makes them worth more than their weight in gold. And I’ve used gold as a standard for worth because of its rarity.

One could argue that steel is a more useful metal than gold and that pizza is a more filling meal than truffle so we should want them more. But we’re weird. Take something away from us and we suddenly want it more. We’re like a toddler who ignores a toy for months on end and is suddenly very interested in it when another toddler picks it up and starts playing with it.

Just to make sure I’m a fully paid-up member of the species, I embrace this weirdness. For the longest time, there was a restaurant in St Julian’s that served Greek food. I knew it was there, I visited a few times and liked the food.

I didn’t go there too often though, mainly because I flit from place to place seeking novelty, but I was comfortable in the knowledge that I could get my fill of Dolmathes and Melitzanosalata whenever I felt like dropping by.

Then it was gone. Bouzouki was no more and I found myself missing food that I didn’t really eat often enough to miss it. The toddler in me was surfacing. This went on for a good long while until, quite recently, I heard they’d risen from Hades and set up shop in Ibrag. As I tend to do, I gave it a while. I like giving a new restaurant the time it takes to smooth out teething troubles before paying a visit. Not that the guys at Bouzouki ought to need much time to sort themselves out. They’d been quite efficient when they ran the restaurant in St Julian’s.

Eventually, when I figured I’d given them enough time, I drove by and parked, quite conveniently, just outside the place that is now called Drift, presumably after a shop of the same name that’s occupied the corner across the road from the church for a while. Much to my disappointment they only served food at lunchtime. I was taken aback a little. Why would one leave my poor stomach wanting Greek food now that I was all fired up about it?

Taramasalata

Like every odyssey worth writing about, there is the need for patience and trials and tribulations. I’d have to visit again for lunch when the opportunity presented itself. It did, a short while later, and it did so in the form of a mid-week holiday. And is wont to happen in every odyssey, I sabotaged myself by neglecting to book a table.

Luckily, the people at Drift are understanding and, since I’d turned up quite early, they showed us to a table. They also asked, quite politely, if we’d manage to vacate it within an hour. I promised I’d eat up quite quickly and rushed to the table before they could change their minds.

Felt like proper home-cooking,the sort you’d cook for yourself on a cold, winter evening

This is, by their admission, a café/meze place. I take this to mean a café that serves mezes and the menu reflects this, with a page of mezes, a few platters, and a handful of salads as lunchtime options. Our host also mentioned that there were a few daily specials that included a rack of lamb, stuffed squid, and a tomato and lentil soup.

I liked the idea of stuffed squid, particularly the Greek way, and was sold on it. I wouldn’t leave there without a couple of starters though so I added the taramasalata, a dip that’s based on fish roes, and a bowl of kefthetes. These are little meatballs in a spicy sauce.

The better half liked the way the soup sounded and started with it, following this up with a moussaka, partly because I gently hinted that I’d love to taste it. As much as I would have loved a bottle of wine, I wasn’t in the mood to rush it so we added a bottle of water to our order and felt inordinately virtuous about it.

Next to us was a table of Prosecco-imbibing, lovely young ladies and I looked at their bottles quite wistfully. They were enjoying themselves a little loudly, so everyone else raised their voices to compete. This led to a vicious cycle of increased volume until the din made it hard to hear myself think.

The place has been done up quite tastefully and makes use of the outside terrace as additional dining area. Every seat had been occupied, likely a combination of the holiday and the fact that one can’t postpone this food until dinner time.

Our starters were served quite quickly. Fresh bread was served alongside the taramasalata and the meat balls and I started by attacking the dip. I’ve tried several variants on this theme, ranging from the stuff you hardly want to look at but tastes like cured roes all the way to the fluorescent pink stuff that’s probably suitable for those allergic to fish.

This is somewhere half way. Judging by the availability and price of proper fish roes, however, this is a decent enough approximation of the real thing.

The spicy meatballs were everything but spicy, unless you count the hint of garlic. They were served in a yoghurt and garlic sauce and this did the trick.

The tomato and lentil soup was, surprisingly, a much more interesting dish. It hadn’t been liquidised beyond recognition and felt like proper home-cooking, the sort you’d cook for yourself on a cold, winter evening.

It was just the right shade of savoury, with a hint of coriander adding an aromatic layer to it. I felt a tiny pang of starter envy creeping in when I tasted it.

The kitchen was perfectly capable of handling the lunchtime assault and our main courses were served quite soon after we’d put paid to our first course. Four small squid were served on a bed of rice. The rice was pleasantly seasoned and had added interest in the form of pine nuts, creating quite the backdrop for its fishy companion. The squid was stuffed with rice and more squid and had just enough citrus zest to keep it lively while the squid itself was a little tough. This little tentacled swimmer is finicky with cooking time and had suffered a little as a result.

The moussaka was great. It was a little oily but quite lovely with tender aubergine that was almost sweet and a rich beef and tomato sauce. It seemed like I wasn’t really winning with my choices so far. But we’d also run out of time. I was keeping my eye on the watch, making sure I don’t overstay my welcome after the guys had been so generously accommodating.

I asked for the bill and headed to the counter to settle it, in an attempt to save time. There I spotted a pile of Baklava and my heart sank a little. As I sorted out the bill for just under €50 I decided I couldn’t possibly leave without taking some of the Baklava with me.

I asked if they’d pack one up and they were happy to do so. Drift might be closed for dinner but I was enjoying the absolute best their kitchen has to offer at tea time.

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