Ed Eats

Frida Street Canteen
Ta’ Xbiex Marina,
Ta’ Xbiex
Mob: 9945 7376

Food: 7/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

As soon as the spirit of a decade is born, she decides on a set of values. When the spirit of the 1960s was born, she looked back at the austerity of the 1950s and decided she was having none of that. So the spirit of the 1960s imbued her decade with with a liberal sprinkling of, well, liberal thinking.

Sex and drugs and music had been around for a long time. It’s just that the 1960s promoted the trifecta in the same way as you’d wear a badge on your shirt to show you work at Hard Rock Café and haven’t just turned up in costume. Naturally, there was a groundswell of thinking before the first of January of 1960 and the whole movement that the decade represented lived on for quite a while. But a decade carries a convenient set of bookends. We have a neat start, we have an entire library of events, and we thankfully have an end so that we can throw out the bellbottoms and wear something else.

I remember the 1980s as another reaction decade. Fear of the bomb had subsided, so everything was wildly optimistic. We were going to travel to Mars and wear jumpsuits and drive hover cars. Fashion was so optimistic it went round a full circle until it met itself. And like every awkward yoga position where you meet yourself, it was ugly.

Now, we’re in a state of nostalgia that’s hung around for too long. The spirit of the first decade of this millennium realised that we’d messed up the planet so thoroughly that there was absolutely nothing to look forward to. So it looked back and dragged bits of the past with it so far into our collective consciousness for so long that being a hipster is mainstream. And we’re stuck there. We’re slowly rejecting consumerism and packaged rubbish and looking for authenticity. We want our stuff to last like it did in our parent’s generation.

We want food that’s made of real ingredients, we want to know where the plants have been grown and we want to trace the origin of the steak on our plates. The word ‘authentic’ has come to mean ‘not mass-produced’ or ‘as nature intended it’ or even ‘the way it was before we screwed it up’.

This is a good thing. So long as this wave lasts, it will have left benefits beyond the manly beard and the push-bike. It has driven a fair portion of the next generation to demand that their food be healthy, nutritious, and sustainably sourced. I say a fair portion because it will take a while for the rest to slap their parents with a frozen salmon steak and ask them to stop pouring soft drinks and chicken nuggets down their throats.

So now I have a mixed reaction to the word authentic. Is it real authentic, or is it manufactured in a way that can be labelled authentic? I’ve heard word of an authentic Mexican restaurant in Ta’ Xbiex and was half sceptical. Then I heard there were actual Mexican people running the place and I was filled with joy.

I love Mexican food. I spent two years studying with a couple of Mexican guys and we spent an inordinate amount of time together. The only lasting effects are that I can swear in Mexican and will only ever drink premium tequila. The guys were kind enough to cook for me and to suss out the only proper Mexican restaurant in town, so I acquired a taste for the real deal. Well, close to it. They insisted that it was close but not exactly like it was in Mexico.

A notch above street food without the price tag of a restaurant

One of my friends had a cook back home and lived in the capital city. He liked the more flavoursome and complex dishes. The other, eternally snobbed for not having a cook at home and not living in the capital city, was more the street food kind of guy and had an unbelievable tolerance for chilli peppers. I found my palate to be much closer to that of the latter.

As luck would have it, one of my favourite partners in crime when it comes to long conversations over good food asked whether I’d join her for lunch at Frida’s. The stars aligned with ease, our calendars coincided with considerably more difficulty, and we finally found ourselves seated inside the lovely, new restaurant.

It’s a clever conjunction of four of the little boathouses across the road from the Black Pearl so it makes up for a lack of depth by spilling over laterally. Every one of the rooms is a bright and tidy dining area and we were welcomed with cheer and enthusiasm. As we sat I realised how new the place is. The menus haven’t yet benefited from the gorgeous branding and are clearly marked as an introductory affair. There are a few salads, a handful of tacos, and a couple of desserts. There’s also agua fresca on the list so we get to enjoy a refreshing cold drink that’s usually made with fresh watermelon and a dash of lime.

We looked at the salads and, as enticing as they sounded, quickly skipped over to the tacos. Predictably, we picked the beef and the fish taco, leaving the veggie one to feel unloved. We were both aching for a Corona but decided to leave that to another day when we didn’t have our respective duties to return to.

I honestly can’t tell how long the food took to be served because we were lost in conversation when it arrived and had been sipping at the deliciously flavoured water. Each dish had three, small tacos on it, arranged in a very neat display. I’d ordered the beef because someone had tried it and recommended it, citing beef that had been perfectly grilled and with a pink core. My immediate observation was that this hadn’t been the case on this particular occasion, so I approached the food with caution.

The beef had been overdone but hadn’t dried out, so all was fine. It was served with the red salsa that’s a mainstay of this kitchen, small bits of queso blanco, a couple of slices of avocado, grilled sweetcorn, and fresh coriander. Queso blanco, a cheese that I never got an accurate translation for from my friends, is very similar to feta, if a little less flavoursome. I suspect they’re actually using feta at Frida but I can’t be certain.

The tortillas are excellent. They’re nothing like the stuff we’re used to, in that they’re nowhere near the stuff we buy in boxes at the supermarket. They’re significantly less fatty so they contribute less to the flavour of the dish, receding into the background and simply supporting the main ingredients.

If you’re looking for heaps of favour like you’d get out of your ‘make-your-own-taco’ kit with a sachet of powdered flavouring, then you’re in for a surprise. Here, you get to taste the beauty of charred sweetcorn, the grilled beef and the fresh coriander. It is not an explosion of flavour – it is more of a simple tribute to fresh ingredients.

I did expect some more contrast, perhaps more coriander and lime, to give the dish a gentle push but I finished my food and enjoyed it.

The fish taco has more energy to it. The fish was battered and fried at a very high temperature so it shed all the oil, leaving a crisp, dry batter and a tender little fillet inside. On top was a lively chipotle dressing that I loved but that was a little too hot for my guest’s liking. She said as much and then proceeded to devour three tacos so I suppose it’s within normal limits.

We took our time over coffee and paid the bill for €25 for the lot. And this made me think about the positioning of Frida. They’ve called it a street canteen but it looks decidedly smarter than the moniker would have you believe. Sure, tacos are street food, but they’re elevated from what we normally think of as street food. So they’re at sweet spot – a notch above street food without the price tag of a restaurant. So, if they add enchiladas to their menu, they’ve got me on the list of their regulars.

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