Ed eats

Nargile Lounge
Triq tal-Gardiel,
Marsascala
Tel: 2163 6734

Food: 6/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 8/10
Value: 9/10
Overall: 7/10

I sometimes suspect that people only ask me questions to confirm that what they have thought all along was true. I am pretty sure that every question that is asked of me comes pre-loaded with an answer so when I reply, all the questioner has to do is match my answer to the pre-loaded one.

It took a brave man to take the cooking from India, North Africa and the Mediterranean and attempt to serve them all on the same menu

Nods indicate a match and shaking heads mean I have disappointed the recipient with an answer they weren’t quite predicting.

“What’s your favourite restaurant?” I am often asked. I go with the obvious reply about favourites depending on the mood, the price range, the cuisine I am after and so on.

When the question is finally specific enough to make sense I reply that my favourite for all those parameters would have to be Restaurant A. If the questioner happens to like Restaurant A, I get enthusiasm and pats on the back.

If Restaurant B had been the answer expected, I get, “Then you haven’t been to Restaurant B.” Maybe I have, I did not quite like it, and formed my own opinion. Is this outcome so unlikely?

Maybe this is why I am never asked what I hate most. I suspect that no one wants to hear about disappointments or pet peeves because there is little one can do to disagree with what I hate. Well, here are a couple of examples.

I have come to dread turning to the next page when the introduction to a menu includes the word ‘concept’. I am afraid your ‘concept’ has been done before, no matter how original you think it is.

And no amount of conceptual cogitation will make up for a poor performance in the kitchen. Getting that off my chest has been quite a relief.

Then there are menus that are filled with awful spelling or grammar. The first spelling mistake in a menu jumps out at me and the rest of my labouring through the pages becomes an unpleasant struggle.

People out there will proof read your menu for the price of the food bill for four people. Have the humility to ask for help if you cannot write.

On the other end of the scale is the overzealous adjective applier. Everything on the menu is ‘tossed’, ‘topped’, ‘pan-seared’ and ‘hand-picked’ and all desserts are ‘decadent’. Please.

I will end my stream of complaining with the attempts to bundle all of a continent’s cooking into one menu.

My mother’s baked pasta is totally different from the one your mother makes and they live not more than 15 minutes away from each other. If this simple dish defines cooking on a very local level, let’s take blended spices as an example of an ingredient that helps define the cooking of a region.

Garam Masala in India, Ras el Hanout in North Africa and Baharat in Turkish cooking are spice blends that are unique to the individual supplier of spices. And a village might have more than one spice supplier. And a region has many villages. And a country has many regions. So you see that the variety is truly gigantic.

Can your menu really be ‘Chinese’?

It took a brave man to take the cooking from India, North Africa and the Mediterranean and attempt to serve them all on the same menu.

This is what Nargile Lounge in Marsascala promises and the first time I went there (back when it was called Shisha), I recall thinking that the promise would be a hard one to fulfil.

I was pleasantly surprised that the task had been approached with an admirable humility. They offered a little sample of each region, with a page dedicated to a smattering of items that don’t try to do more than introduce the diner to the typical dishes.

This introduction is not intended to provide any depth into the cuisine of the area and is presented in an unpretentious and inexpensive way so any scepticism one might have is left at the door thanks to the disarming humility of the service and the place itself.

Even since the new name and new management, the style, approach and sheer value of the place remain true to the original promise.

Trying to eat out in Marsascala on a Sunday night is like a search through my sock drawer. I know that what I am looking for is probably there somewhere but it is very hard to find.

Lights out and doors closed at most of the places I knew would feed me well had me circling the system of one-way roads designed by MC Escher on a particularly nasty trip.

I finally took an exit that looked like it led to Frankfurt and drove past Nargile, a shining beacon of hope in the desolate wilderness of my starvation.

The place was not busy and we were seated practically immediately. Not long after, the man who seems to be running the place came by to deliver menus and give us some time to examine them.

As is expected, the menus are relatively extensive but perfectly manageable, fitting in with the unpretentious nature of the place. There are even special value combinations that encourage diners to pick a number of starters from one continent.

I find it harder to come across proper North African food than to come across Indian food so we opted for three starters from this part of the menu to share.

Baba ghanoush, Dolmah and Koftah would start the meal in North African style. Baba Ghanoush is an aubergine dip with a hint of sesame which went down really nicely with the warm pita bread. Also enjoyable was their thoughtful addition of a mint dip and yoghurt that made the dipping frenzy even more frenetic.

This was followed up quite quickly with the Dolmah, little stuffed rolls of cabbage leaf, and koftah, small balls of spiced lamb. The portions are enough to sample the variety of flavours without being too filling.

The main courses took quite a while which is probably just as well. My Bourdeem Laham, a slow-cooked marinated lamb dish was packed with flavour and, if I am to be quite picky, wasn’t as tender as slow cooked lamb can be.

The potatoes it was served with, complete with crisp onion, were delicious and really well worth returning for. These are the potatoes that make you wish you’d ordered them for starters, main course and dessert.

I was a bit disappointed with the wine menu. This was quite a feature of the place some time ago and now only included one Lebanese wine, a €30 Chateau Ksara. I expected a more democratic approach, one that would give diners a more accessible entry into the fabled liquids from Lebanon. I picked an Antonin Noir, a steal at €21, that worked wonders with our main courses.

We also ordered beef Madras. This staple of Indian menus was pretty much what we’ve come to expect, with cardamom and coriander being quite prominent and no real heat to speak of. We’d ordered Geera rice to go with it and lapped up all of the remaining sauce.

To finish off the meal I ordered their green tea, served with mint leaves and roasted pine nuts. It was both soothing and surprising, sweetened and gives the occasional crunch of toasty pine nuts.

We paid a bit less than €60 which means we paid just €20 each for the food itself.

While it is not the best North African or the best Indian food I have tasted, the variety is unparalleled, the service is pleasant and unpretentious and the value is hard to beat.