Karnival tan-Nadur

the nadur carnival in malta
can be one of the best experiences
i dressed up as an alien
specifically a bith from the star wars saga
biths are found playing clarinet-like instruments in cantinas
except my costume also had angel wings

that was saturday
sunday
i prepared this itsy bitsy teensy weensy elaborate meal
for the people staying at the farmhouse i was at

mela

which means ("and so...")


first course included:

foie gras topped with an apple sauce
a cutlet of medium rare tandoori ostrich
cherries parcelled in bacon strips
and oven cooked glazed onions

main course contained:

a larger than usual bragiolu (in english this has been given the inapproriate title of "stuffed beef olive") with asparagus
a sautee of potato wedges cooked in reduced lamb stock
an undercooked tomato filled with beef salmon egg and chestnuts
and a lettuce salad

dessert:

dark chocolate cheesecake
with biscuit base and fresh fruit

i will not go on about how good this was
but i must say that those who had the joy to sample my creations seemed to agree:
having me as a friend reaps its benefits

Ali Baba - Gzira

i first heard of Ali Baba
when i once was looking to buy myself a shisha (hookah)
these are big water bongs for flavoured tobacco
and are used throughout the arab world

about four years ago
nobody had these things available
now every bar with a smoking section boasts a collection of flavoured tobbaccos and a shisha
but ali baba was probably the sole supplier of the stuff

anywhat
this place in gzira is a very unassuming restaurant
an ugly rothmans sponsored sign sports the name
wooden planks pave the inside walls which give it a very distinctive 70's look
it looks more like a place where you get a tea and a hobza biz-zejt rather than a restaurant
but apparently what goes for books and their covers
goes for restaurants and their food

i recommend ignoring the facade and interior decor
although i adamantly believe in food presentation
and in the marriage of all the senses where possible
i think it is easy to forego the packaging the place offers
as the food can move you to tears

much like the cave from the arabian nights tale
ali baba's restaurant reserves astounding culinary treasures

the place is small yet it is extremely delightful
run by a lebanese family
the elderly bartender and shisha tobacconist father
and the chef son

we were greeted at once
by the chef himself
who was also responsible for serving our meals
this guy comes off as being rather erudite in the ways of the kitchen

we chose a lebanese wine from a list
but left the food choices to the chef himself

serving after serving of delicious items came out of his humble kitchen
from humus to cheese dips to raw marinated mutton to lamb brains

the little banquet was concluded with a dessert of helwa tat-tork (halva)
baccalava pie
some coffee
and on the house lebanese liqueur

ali baba's in gzira is unpretentious
and offers the unexpected
by any culinary standard

yours gastronomically

Lord Nelson - Mosta -=[Prawn and Coconut Soup]=-

without further ado
i must say
that the Lord Nelson restaurant in mosta is one of the best places to eat in the whole of malta
i haven't been to every restaurant of course but i am sure that it is
it must

i know i didn't ado much
infact i didn't ado much at all
i opened with
that
though
because i have been wanting to go there for some time now
but i never had the occasion or the pleasure

first course: prawn and coconut soup
main course: grilled salmon with banana and garam masala
dessert: a walnut and dark chocolate torte with mincemeat ice-cream (as in christmas mince-pie stuffing)

as usual i chose my order carefully and i was extremely pleased with what i was served

i remember a time when the Lord Nelson was a nice bar where you could order food and snacks much like other bars in mosta yet they served superior quality food
in the sense that one could order a simple ravioli or spaghetti, or a ftira or a burger with chips
but i remember that their stuff was excellent
in comparison to the others in mosta centre

there's a missing story here somewhere
of it's transition into the high end restaurant it is now
whatever that story may be
the transition was almost cool a move as when man evolved from the apes

well i mean at least in the evolutionary history of the building itself
i m sure that the metaphor holds

there exist soups which although good and tasty, make you want to stay away from soup for
very long
probably due to their normality and lack of intrigue

why yes! intrigue from soup
i expect varieties of wide ended spectra of sensory results from my food

then there are soups that are great soups
the kind only your grandmother makes
or a grandmother of a friend

then there are soups which cease to exist as soups and become something else
much like the chocolate cake that makes that girl orgasm in one of the matrix sequels
this soup belongs to such category

that was only the start of the meal

the other two entrees were, of course, divine

Il Buco - luckily the name is not apt in the negative sense

and once again
i come back to grace the pages of blogspot!

before attending a not so well enjoyed punk gig
Saturday night at Poxx Bar
and after driving away from my last work shift at the nationalist propaganda machine that is Net News
i stopped by this little shop in the corner accross and opposite the culinary infamous Champs
in paceville

now to deviate a little
there was a time were fast food and street food was scarce in our little clubtown
i remember many a night enjoying Champs' almost plastic like pizzas
while intoxicated on similar quality booze
i dont eat there any more unless i really want to eat that sort of thing
which lately is a craving i almost never get
...luckily

today however there are a number of eateries in town
which give a bit of a more interesting variety

i had noticed il buco about a week ago and i had an inkling memory that the place was a cheesecounter/salumeria sandwich bar
but wasn't too sure
i passed by but instead of going in i bought a burger and a chicken drumstick from the barbecue they had set up on their parapet
then whilst eating i caught good glimpses of the inside and realised that i was right on my hunch
and that i missed a better eating opportunity

nonetheless
last Saturday i returned to the place
to complete my testing mission
and the results were extremely satisfactory
Il Buco is now up there in the top two street food eating experiences in paceville
the other one being the previously blogged Al Rifugio's

on the downside i must note that Al Rifugio changed their Salame Piccante to another variety which although very similar is not exactly the same and makes the pizza a bit different
this had become my favorite pizza topping
furthermore they have increased the prices
a large pizza now sells for a around a whopping fiver

back to the hole
Il Buco has a wholesome display of pickled vegetables and delicatessen
different cheeses
maybe like 20 different cheeses
and another well varied selection of salamis
and section of pickled delicacies
they offer baguettes and Maltese ftiras and apart from the sandwiches they offer pasta dishes
i haven't tried these but they looked like quality stuff

i think that one of the owners is Italian
which is always comforting
what i am sure of
is that the young
short and bleached haired girl at the counter
is as cute as they come
which is always welcoming

i hope that this business thrives

achewood on molecular gastronomy

click on it to view

from http://achewood.com/index.php?date=01262007

molecular gastronomy

have you ever wondered why meat becomes brown when you cook it?
why jelly is produced if you boil bones and then let it cool?
why custard when you fuck it up becomes scrambled eggs?
how whipped cream gets stiff, and why it can come out of a can ready and whipped?
why eggs solidfy when heated whilst cheese melts when heated?
or why cotton candy forms the way it does?

well i have
and i don't know any of the above answers to fine scientific detail
however a certain french scientist Herve This and a physicitst Nicholas Kurti investigated the science of the kitchen back in the late sixties
and as a result they coined the term molecular gastronomy

today molecular gastronomy is mostly attatched to certain restaurants who have applied some of This' and Kurti's findings and have contiuned to research in their own kitchen-laboratories

two of the most popular of these are Ferran Adria of El Bulli in Roses Spain
and Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, England

Blumenthal is responsible for such food creations as the bacon and egg ice-cream, the snail porridge, oyster and passionfruit jelly with lavender, triple-cooked chips, and poached breast of Anjou pigeon with pancetta
although some of his ideas sound less palatable i would want to taste Bluimenthal's dishes at least once
an interesting technique that Blumenthal propounds is the cooking of certain foods at very slow speeds
for example cooking meat for up to 24 hours on very low temperartures

Adria is the one that i m most interested in, i ve been reading about him for more than a year
and the El Bulli restaurant is one that i will definetely eat in one day, (i hope)

he is responsible for culinary foam such as foamed espresso, foamed mushroom, foamed beet and foamed parsley
this foam is put on top of food to complement and garnish
he is also well known for the inventions of liquid pea ravioli -which holds itself together much like an egg yolk does- and for fruit caviar which has the exact texture and make up of caviar but is made of fruit puree
these last ones hold themselves together using a similar technique as far as i can understand

however it is difficult to replicate it in a normal kitchen since you need these two chemicals which in turn they also need to be graded for human consumption

since i discovered how to embed youtube videos in here you will probably be seeing more visual content along with your reads here is a four part tv documentary on Ferran Adria and his food










and here is Blumenthal's quest for the perfect pizza:

hawn tal pastizzi shan u tajbin

this morning i ate some pastizzi
nothing notable
the usual kind a few hours stale
they re best when fresh
then i was thinking of that song by the ex-Fr.David Azzopardi
tal-pastizzi
it goes something like this

"hawn tal pastizzi,
shan u tajbin
tlett soldi il-wiehed
erba xelin"

now i m not sure if the lyrics are right but i think they are
and they translate (very loosely) to something like this

"here's the pastizzi-guy
they're warm and good
three cents each
four for a shilling"
now as far as i know a shilling is 5 pence, 5 cents in malta
and i am guessing (probably incorrectly) that a "sold" is a cent
so how can it be that one pastizz is 3 cents and four pastizzi are 5 cents i mean thats a very unreasonable bargain

if any readers know better please post comments
i m also looking for a streamed version of that pastizzi song by the ex-Fr.David Azzopardi
who showed us all that his true love was for the pastizz when he gave up priesthood and got married instead

whilst looking for it on you tube i instead found something better:



i love the way she bit into her pastizz too!
don't you?