For only half a lemon

Ed eats

Two and a Half Lemon
Vault 5, Old Treasury Building,
St Angelo Waterfront,
Vittoriosa Marina
Tel: 2180 9909

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

As I cheerfully chuck another chunk of chocolate chip cake down my throat, the lady on TV who looks like she’s had her face photoshopped announces more unrest as peoplein Europe come to terms withausterity measures.

I ignored the wistful looks of those who hadn’t ordered starters and devoured mine

It is a pity that her face is no longer able to display emotion because if it did, I am sure she’d look appropriately sympathetic.

‘Austerity’ is another word that we have rekindled. The news seems to pick the first word used to label whatever the current crisis happens to be and spread it around like we have just discovered it.

Remember how everything about September 11, 2001 was ‘unprecedented’? And how last year ended with the banding around of a ‘double-dip’. Double-dip sounds good.

At the chocolate fountain or the fondue pot (or caquelon, a wordI doubt will become hugely popular unless a very heavy one killssomeone important).

I mentioned this to my mum and we ended up having one of those conversations that turns all nostalgic and she recalled that ‘back in her days’, the post-war austerity period, staples like sugar and eggs were strictly controlled.

Surely we can’t be headed that way again. What is Europe without crème brûlée?

Europe is not new to austerity and even less new to imposed austerity measures. Among the first we know of are those imposed in AD 182 by Commodus in the state of Rome. He devalued the Empire’s currency but lived a life of unchecked hedonism.

That he is said to have commenced the decline of the empire is, to my uninformed mind, an exaggeration since it lasted for another three centuries. But then I’d be the one to stick up for the glutton.

Also quite frugal are those who, for the sake of half a lemon, stop short of naming their restaurant ‘three lemons’. Two and a Half Lemon (sic) in Vittoriosa is a place I admire for the sheer originality of its name.

If I were to own a restaurant and call it ‘Ed’s’ it would be succinct but dramatically unimaginative. Or, to stretch Mona’s model a little, I’d have a pub that I’d call Be’elzePub. I wonder how well that would go down in a country like Malta.

Back to Two and a Half Lemon though. The name is fun. The location is lovely, too. Overlooking the clinically clean Grand Harbour Marina and set inside an age-old stone vault, the restaurant is avery clever exercise in design that creates a modern dining space without any permanent intervention that could possibly affect the ancient stonework.

The furniture is fun, blending traditional Maltese wooden chairs with transparent chairs that tip their berets to Louis XVI. The lighting is interesting and looks like it’s been custom made, too.

On the day I visited for lunch, along with the rest of the circus troupe on our day off, the weather was blustery and chilly so the outside space, although sheltered by a tent-like structure, was not going to keep some of us warm enough so we headed inside.

We were immediately greeted by the man running the floor and he did all he could to help the rowdy lot of us to settle in.

Once seated, menus in hands and jackets dumped all over the place, we started discussing the pros and cons of ordering food that is served on hot stone, a speciality at 2½L (if I am permitted the abbreviation) that they call the Black Rock Grill.

Half the table liked the idea, thrilled at the possibility of picking your own cooking time and temperature. One fourth of the table feared that the hot stone would, through the course of a meal, inevitablyovercook the likes of beef and prawns unless you were to take all the raw meat off the stone as soon as it was delivered and then cook bits and pieces to your liking.

The remaining quarter of the people at table were divided into those who were unimpressed by the thought of raw chicken at table and the ones who felt that eating out is special because someone else gets to do the cooking. If there is one thing that the hot-stone method is good at it is kickstarting a conversation. And practising one’s fractions.

In the end neither of us ended up ordering the 2½L Black Rock Grill. We picked items around the menu that is pretty much standard fare. There seems to be more fun to be had in the starters section than among the main courses.

Quite possibly they depend on their hot stone for novelty. I read through the list over and over hoping to be inspired but wasn’t so I played safe and ordered the Aberdeen Angus Ribeye. For starters I picked the whitebait fritters.

We were served some lovely olives and fresh bread and waited a short while for the whitebait fritters to be served. Not all of us had ordered starters, so I ignored the wistful looks of those who hadn’t and devoured mine.

I am one of the few people who can ignore a puppy’s most desperate attempts at sequestering a morsel by using their cute-eye trick. I am at the top of the food chain for a reason. And the whitebait fritters were excellent so all the more reason for not offering to share with those who lacked the foresight to order starters.

The real wait began at the end of the starters. The place was not packed and we waited for what we considered too long before our main courses were delivered.

My ribeye, ordered rare and served medium, had little goingfor it. The chef had trimmed it to a very neat slab but the meatjust didn’t cut it and there is no amount of expert trimming and grilling that can substitute good raw materials.

Presentation was great all around, with the grilled seabass served filleted in a neat little tower atop a colourful bed of grilled veg.

Barbecued ribs were also piled as appealingly as ribs can possibly be piled. Both dishes were deemed good but not great by those who consumed them.

The Barbary duck breast had also been cooked a bit beyond rare and, while the sauce was nice and fruity with an appropriately acidic zest to it, the breast was not as tender as it could be.

We resisted dessert but opted for coffee to help us through the afternoon. While we hadn’t ordered wine, we were very pleased with the bill that just hit the €20 per person mark. That is really not a lot of money to pay for excellent service (with marks lost on serving time and not quality), reasonably good food and a very pleasant location.

In times of austerity every little bit counts. And if half a lemon is all we have to sacrifice to pay €20 for a steak and some yummy fritters, I suppose all that’s predicted on the news can’t be half bad.

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