Ed eats

Dine West
30, Fisher Road,
Mġarr
Tel: 2143 4014

Food: 7/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 7/10
Value: 9/10
Overall: 7.5/10

I do all I can to keep my identity under wraps. If I didn’t, I’d be invited to a whole lot of restaurants and events on the premise that the restaurateurs doing the inviting will gain free exposure out of it. I’m afraid, however, that accepting invitations would make this column redundant.

The décor is smart. They even installed a walk-in wine room walled off in glass to keep the temperature under control

Unless I enter a restaurant unannounced, pay for meal, and head straight out, I’ll be treated differently. And reporting regal treatment every time would render this page entirely useless.

There is obviously a circle of friends and family around me that knows what I’m up to and they are thankfully very discreet. This doesn’t stop them from recommending restaurants to me, and one regular cause of recommendations is the one that starts with, “I read your review about such and such a place…” and the sentence hangs there for a while, the pause heavy with suspense.

This is inevitably followed by the name of a restaurant that serves the same kind of food. My head goes into this decision-making path, following a labyrinthine query algorithm that has built itself into my consciousness.

Have I been there before? Have I heard anyone else recommend it? Does the person recommending it have a good track record of recommending the right places? Do I even feel like that kind of cuisine again?

The list of internal questions goes on, possibly evident by the slightly dazed look on my face as I carry out the entirely unfamiliar process of actually thinking. Irrespective of my decision, I normally reply in a non-committal way for fear of disappointing whoever is recommending the restaurant, just in case it takes a while for the restaurant to fit into my schedule.

One such recommendation came from someone whose opinion about food I respect highly. He travels regularly, accompanied by his partner in all things gourmet, and has happily eaten his way through a significant chunk of Europe. Whenever he’s back from his travels we meet up and I listen in rapture as he describes his trip, meals forming all the milestones.

His photos are just as biased. A couple of architectural landmarks. The obligatory silly photo of one of his funny facial expressions. And gigabytes of food shots.

He spoke to me about one of my experiences eating rabbit and agreed that it was indeed a good option. Then he went on to tell me about one of his favourite options – a place called Dine West in Mġarr.

My internal question list kicked in, and by the end of my cogitation I quickly replied that I will definitely try it out if he would accept to join me. Neither of us needs much cajoling when the prospect of eating out is on the cards, so a date was set.

Then I had to travel and we postponed, I had work commitments and we postponed, I had to meet the King of Latin America and we postponed. Finally we set a date and decided that, come hell or high water, we were going to dine out West.

The name is curious. I pictured a Western-style saloon and almost dressed the part on the night we finally met up. It is a good thing I didn’t because the place looks leagues smarter than what I’d imagined.

Think of every fenkata place you’ve ever been to and this has absolutely nothing to do with it. It is elevated above street level and the owners have had the decency to install a lift for those unable to climb stairs. I’m thrilled when any location open to the public takes accessibility seriously.

The décor is smart, the lighting is well balanced and they have even installed a walk-in wine room that is walled off in glass to keep the temperature under control. A TV in the far corner is tuned to the Food Network channel instead of the obligatory football match. By the time I was seated, I was already well on the way to liking the place.

The menus contain quite a spread and are, for the main part, quite typical of most restaurants that refuse to specialise. Pizza, pasta, meat, fish and poultry dishes occupy the majority of the menu. Scattered here and there are typical Maltese dishes. This is very specifically what we had turned up for so the four of us ordered exactly the same thing.

We’d been discussing snails and rabbit since we mentioned Dine West and, while we were tempted to stray from our mission by several items on the menu, we stood our course.

My greatest temptation turned up in the form of three pizzas being delivered to an adjacent table, but I held my ground, supported by the kind words of encouragement by my companions at table. And by ‘kind words of encouragement’ I mean very stern words that warned me not to abandon our mission.

A young lady took our orders for food and our first round of beer. I thought beer would help us stick to the spirit of our mission without insulting the restaurant by asking whether they serve the liquid that passes off as wine at some fenkati.

When ordering rabbit we were given a choice of having a whole rabbit to share or to have it plated and we opted for the latter, an option more in-keeping with the spirit of the place.

Our snails were served in a large bowl for us to share, as we requested it, and we used our side-plates to store the empty shells. The snails had been cooked in a thick sauce based on red wine and which was intensely flavoured with a heady mixture of so many spices that we played a little guessing game.

Star anise emerged as the star of the show. Whoever first discovered that snails can actually be eaten was a brave person (or a very hungry one) and I silently thanked her for the serendipity that gave us this delicacy.

We’d been given the choice between fried rabbit or rabbit served in a ‘sauce’ and, upon the recommendation of my friends who’d been there before, we’d opted for the sauce. This turned out to be an excellent choice.

The rabbit, served quite neatly on a plate each, had been cooked in a traditional sauce and was, for the most part, very tender.

The potato wedges, served skins and all, were also a very suitable companion to the rabbit and made a welcome change from the oily chips I’m used to at fenkati, and I ate my fill. Then I had a few more, lest there be a single gap left in my stomach.

I had no room for dessert and nibbled at the bowl of peanuts that was served while a Cassatella was devoured across the table. We then ordered coffees to keep us alert for the drive back home and a plate of ħelwa tat-Tork turned up as a sweet and sticky end to our meal.

We paid just over €15 each for the little feast, fantastic value for the food we’d just eaten. The service is very informal, perhaps so informal that it is at odds with the neat aesthetics of the restaurant, and yet it totally matches the food we ate and the price we paid.

I think this is as close as one can get to a posh fenkata, an unlikely combination of words by any standard. And it is a combination I’ll gladly give another shot at some point.

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