THE TIME MACHINE

Lo Squero

Hay Wharf,

Floriana

Tel 21232700

Food 6

Service 9

Ambiance 7

Value 6

Average 7

Witticisms about predicting the future have been around since HG Wells brought the phrase ‘time machine’ into the forefront of our vernacular. The best way of predicting the future is to design it, claims one particularly bold car manufacturer. A man famous for coloured thinking hats said pretty much the same thing and claimed the phrase as his own. And where the witticisms fail, the conundrums start. What if I entered a time machine and stole my dad’s car on the night I was conceived? He’d have been too busy filing police reports to bother with any sort of behaviour that could lead to my being here today. Or yesterday.

And so while I would love to predict what this year could possibly yield, I must settle for getting through my day without any major mishap and hoping that dinner tonight will be worth writing home about. Or at least worth sharing with the beautiful readers of this esteemed publication. I shared this thought with a friend of mine who said that he’d love to go out to dinner but simply getting through his day had caused a rather inconvenient leg injury. Quite how he managed this remains a mystery. The long and short of it, however, meant the selection of a restaurant that could provide very convenient parking and absolutely no stairs.

Being the generous and obliging spirit that I am, I left the choice of venue in his hands. It was his leg, after all, that was dictating terms. He booked a table for six at Lo Squero in Valletta and I naturally queried his maths. Could the fall have dented his ability to count up to four? It turns out he was including his decidedly delectable daughter bringing the tally up to five, and an additional chair for his poor leg that needed to spend some time horizontal. I’m quite positive that a lot of the mise en scene was overly dramatic but I could hardly tell him that. Let’s hope he buys Sunday papers inferior to this one.

And so at the strike of eight of the evening clock we convened, with all the women who rule our lives plus a pair of crutches for additional support. Parking outside Lo Squero is really a convenient affair and the view down there is simply amazing. Perched on the seafront of Marsamxett, one can see all the way from Sa Maison to Tigne point.

A sign outside claims that this is a ristorante Italiano. Thus warned we headed inside and into the past. Red drapes billow from the ceiling over the bar area and thin, white panelling covers the restaurant ceiling. Ageing drapes partially obscure the wonderful view and little lanterns attached to the columns complete that early eighties look. HG Wells smirked, knowingly.

We were shown to our table that occupied a prime spot, with just a pane of glass (and those period curtains) separating us from the sea outside. A charming man, smiling in the most welcoming of manners, made sure we were settled comfortably, leg and all. In a mixture of Italian, Maltese and English he discussed our plans for the meal ahead and I went with the injured man’s desire to start with as many different pasta dishes as we could handle. Black tufoli with seppioline (tiny cuttle-fish) in a tomato base, spaghetti vongole (clams) and spaghetti ricci (sea urchin) would do the trick and these would be accompanied by a bottle of Greco di Tufo. We agreed that we would discuss our main course when we were done with the pasta.

Quite soon we were served some crunchy bruschetta and an alternative to the tomato-based nibble with a black olive paste. We munched and talked and I was introduced to the virtues of watching X-factor and wearing Ugg boots by the delectable daughter. I realised that my education had been sadly neglected since it had unfortunately not included either of these two staples. I saved face by managing to correctly expand all the three letter acronyms she threw at me so all was not lost and my social reputation scraped through the match with a respectable draw.

Quite a while passed before our pasta was served and we sat and sipped the wine, enjoying the relatively dark-coloured white. Somehow Greco di Tufo often reminds me of a Viognier which, to my knowledge is unrelated. In any case, most of it was gone by the time the pasta arrived. The portions of pasta to share were quite generous and we started to share these around the table. I decided to work my way up, leaving the heavier, tomato-based seppioline until the end. The sea-urchin based dish was decent but quite unremarkable while the spaghetti with clams was decidedly better if a little rich for my liking. Here I must state a personal preference for simplest of iterations of this dish and everyone around the table simply loved this particular one. The tiny cousins of the squid had been treated to a very generous dose of chilli pepper. I happen to love the devilish stuff and I know I’m in a relative minority here. The appalled looks around the table confirmed that I was the only one really enjoying the baby cuttle-fish that gushed lava when I bit into them.

The good thing for me about excess chilli is that I get to enjoy much more than my fair share but this was clearly a mistake that the kitchen had made. Tears flowed around the table, water was imbibed in biblical quantities, no doubt to make up for the loss, and four people and a leg opted for the other two plates. In every case, the pasta itself had been made in-house and was nothing short of excellent in terms of texture, cooking time and its ability to snuggle up to the sauce rather than let it sit on its lap.

By the end of this we were all far too full to contemplate a second course and it was also getting rather late. We even managed to turn down the very tantalizing offer of dessert, such was our level of satiation.

We sat back and enjoyed the view, sipping our post-prandial liqueurs and waiting for the bill that quite surprisingly hit the €100 mark. If one were to divide this by five, we paid a reasonable €20 each (I’m leaving the seated leg out of all calculations) but if one considers that we had three dishes of pasta and a bottle of wine that works out to roughly €25 per pasta dish. It would take a hell of a lot more pasta than that to justify what we paid for it. In all fairness we had been treated like royalty from start to finish, with every person who attended to our table being extremely polite and friendly, seeing to our every whim with smiles and a respectable turn of speed so I could hardly complain about a couple of pints worth of perceived discrepancy in value.

I walked out wishing for a time machine, one that could take me back to the eighties when the décor would have been perfect for the time and the fabulous view had not yet been marred by several architectural abominations that stick out like sore thumbs (or broken legs). Square up to the 21^st century, Lo Squero, and when you do I’ll be back for more squid.