Fortina Spa Resort Hotel, Sliema, Malta: Review of Restaurants including Taste, Sa Re Ga Ma, Can Thai, MoMo

28th December to 4th January
I have just returned from a weeks holiday in Malta, a regular jaunt for my wife and I and I thought I would review the various eating options that exist in the hotel, and a couple of out of hotel experiences. Malta is not known for its culinary excellence, although there are traditional foods which are a cross between Mediterranean and North African. Over the past few years, especially since Malta joined the EU, there has been an increasing Italian influence (not surprising as Sicily is only a hop away), and we have noted that most of the new restaurants are Italian style (including many Pizza and Pasta, for the budget conscious) and others have converted to Italian.
Fortina Spa resort started out as an all inclusive 4* hotel with a small Thalassotherapy spa to a major league spa resort offering pretty much everything including fish therapy and colonic irrigation. There are a number of excellent restaurants (aimed both at tourists and the better end of the local trade) which guests have access to.This blog will review the ones we used.
Taste
For the guest in the 5*, the restaurant called Taste is the key destination. It is where breakfast is served every day, and where you can have lunch and or dinner on most days. http://www.fortinasparesort.com/taste
Described as Mediterranean and Vienamese, the emphasis on Meditteranean. The cooking is novel (see menu) and covers a wide variety of tastes at lunch and dinner. Breakfast is another matter. For a five star hotel, the breakfast is nearer 3.9*. It is in fact identical to the breakfast served in the 4* bit of the hotel.

The buffet breakfast is a mixture of hot and cold. If anything raises the star rating, the litmus test is whether there is smoked salmon and champagne, and in this case there is both. There is also a bottle of vodka and tomato juice, if that is your morning starter.As usual the hot buffet falls down in the hotness and quality of scrambled eggs in that both are inadequately hot (only scoring a bare 7 on the scalee, and with solid scrambled egg - I did not even bother. There is also an omelette bar, but there is an element of luck here as to who cooks it: a request for easy over fried resulted in solid eggs, and my first omelette was overcooked. There is a selection of fresh bread and rolls, and the bread is very crusty but there is a lack of variety: white or brownish. A selection of fresh fruit and yoghourt is provided, changing on a daily basis, and the usual cereals are there. So the breakfast could be better, and relies too much on below average hot food. Cold food is better, but there is a poor choice (see above).

Lunch at Taste is a different matter, and just check out the menu on the web link.Over the week, we had lunch there a couple of times. It is pointless going there for a quick lunch, and you should allow between 90 minutes to two hours.

Here are a couple of examples of lunch

How pretty these look and almost a shame to cut up and eat. The starter at the top has pranws and something else I cannot remember, and below is their escalope of veal. Both scored an 8 on the CHOF scale, but as everything happens very slowly, it is difficult to assume that hot food is their concern.

Dinner in this restaurant is very popular, with it often being booked up well in advance. One night I had Spaghetti with a venison bolognese sauce, followed by Guinea Fowl tornados with kohl rabi (which I failed to find) Lighting is very subdued, so pictures are not the greatest.

I made a note at the time that both of these scored a 9 on the CHOF scale, and were excellent. I followed this by an exotic fruit salad, and I am still not sure what the things that look maniac dice with lots of spots are.

In summary, Taste for lunch and dinner is a good choice serving a variety of food that can be hot but takes time to come. Atmosphere is excellent. If you look at the menu, if you are an outside visitor, it can be quite expensive.