We love a good couscous as well as North African cuisine in general. So we had been meaning to try out this Moroccan restaurant in Qui si Sana for some time.

The place is not typical of a Moroccan restaurant insofar as they seem to have purposely steered clear of the obvious and somewhat expected traditional colourful décor. This has produced a rather bare ambiance with the exception of one large and superfluous TV, which admittedly was mainly showing clips of what distinctly looked like Morocco and thankfully had its sound turned off.

We were very warmly welcomed and served throughout the evening by two keen, courteous and friendly lads, whose positive and helpful attitude largely compensated for a series of unintentional and sometimes humorous hiccups in the service. This came in sharp contrast to the many servers we encountered abroad during our recent trip, who in their majority served in a perfectly precise and efficient, quasi-robotic manner, but who were largely devoid of any human warmth or charm. Many cultural stereotypes come to mind…

We were four at table and decided on a selection of mixed starters to share, followed by a lamb couscous, a vegetarian couscous, a lamb tagine and chicken breast skewers.

The starters were interesting and varied and included a selection of salads, pastries, hummus and diced liver which were pleasant and overall satisfactory. Portions were also very generous to the extent that we chose not to finish them all, thus leaving space for the mains. The staff very astutely only removed the empty dishes and left the others on our table to accompany our mains. This was good thinking on their part.

The grain of my couscous, which may be considered the dish’s main component, was simply cooked to perfection. It was light, fluffy and of a perfect texture. Similarly the lamb which accompanied the couscous, as well as the one in the tagine, was perfectly steamed, extremely tender and had that lovely luscious fatty taste that only lamb can produce. The vegetables were served very chunky, as is customary with couscous. However both couscous dishes might have been a bit more tasty and it seems that the cooking sauces which are added to the dish could have used a bit more seasoning or were perhaps too watered down. Realising that we love harisa, one of the servers kindly suggested that our couscous be cooked already spicy, to which we very much agreed, however this was not the case. The chicken skewers were tender and tasty, although they were not skewers.

Morocco produces some very acceptable red and rosé wines. Actually the rosé is more of a very pale blush type rosé, which they call vin gris. Although Moroccan wines were mysteriously absent on the wine list, when inquiring we were informed that they were in fact available. So we went for a red Domaine Toulal which did slightly lack body, but was nevertheless quite pleasant.

Much to our surprise and delight, we were offered free desserts and tea and may I state that this was in no way offered to us to appease any form of complaint from our side, but seemingly just out of traditional Moroccan hospitality. Here again we couldn’t help comparing this generous gesture to our very recent countless restaurant meals abroad, where absolutely nothing is ever offered for free to customers. Well not unless you have some massive dispute with them…

The baklava traditional pastry desserts were nice and the mint tea was lovely. As expected, it was aptly poured from high above, both to show off but also to aerate the tea so as to release its full flavour. Luckily the pastries were simply placed on our table smile emoticon

We found pricing to be very reasonable, offering the diner good value for money, especially in view of their large portion sizes and ample freebies.

To sum it all up, I would say that visibly there are various small improvements which would only add to the dining experience in this restaurant, both in terms of food and notably in service. However we still had an enjoyable evening and after all it’s not like there is a couscous joint at every street corner in Malta. So next time we feel like one we would gladly return.