Talking about the weather is the ultimate in boredom topics unless British people are involved in the conversation, in which case it is a prerequisite, a diplomatic assessment, a handshake across cultures.

In Malta we do not just talk about the weather, we action it by pretending it doesn't exist. It's all very passive aggressive. Usually if there was some kind of extreme involved the whole country would come crashing down. Literally. And our weather does not do ‘raining’ but ‘pouring’. We don’t have ‘bad weather’; we have storms that make us quake under our quilts. Try explaining that one to the Brits, especially if they’ve just bought their ‘constant summer holiday’ home here.

So one Monday I left for work at around 8.30am as I normally do. The trip to the office takes me ten to fifteen minutes as by then Marsa would have cleared. By the time we hit Luqa and Santa Lucija I was thinking ‘Wow – torrential rain and no traffic’. By Marsa, I had eaten those words with jam and butter on top.

Forty five minutes later and I edged towards the Marsa Sports Grounds. I was tweeting, facebooking and even reading a magazine in full view of a (very good looking) traffic policeman: the car had been switched off. I saw a huge line for the Santa Venera tunnels so I headed for Msida instead. Why? Who knows? By then it wasn’t just the ‘other drivers’ that had lost it; my marbles were somewhere out there in the rain.

At some point I found myself in Hamrun, having tried to escape Msida. I didn’t even know Hamrun had a suburbia, but it does, and I parked in it. I started working from the car, blackberrying and calling and generally setting up a mobile office. People had given up on driving and much as what happened on Marsa Bridge Day they were coming out of their cars, lighting up and generally having a good banter.Kull ma kien jonqosna kafe’ u sungwic.

And verily, desperate for a cuppa, I chanced upon a cafeteria which just happened to be The Mile End. The last time I had been there was somewhere back in the 90’s when the atmosphere was as rough as a whore’s bum but the food was surprisingly flavourful and genuine. And copious.

This time when I asked for my ‘te fit-tazza’ I was met with the (by now) usual ‘skimmed?’ only to reply ‘tal-bott’. Mile End, also known in Maltese as Il-Majlent has been not only spruced up but completely facelifted. It now calls itself a Pizza Pasta Grill on frosted glass and has chefs in whites, not just cooks. The interior is decked out in duck egg blue. In fact it looks better than most pretentious cafeterias and Malta restaurants and has none of the stupid prices.

The tea was perfect, made with that ‘Maltese essence of tea’ (three million teabags seeping in 50ml of water in a huge aluminium pot), hot water added to it and milk added with the satisfying chink of a long teaspoon against glass. They have newspapers on the table (actually just The Times – probably so that civil war does not break out at the appearance of a political newspaper – the Partit Laburista headquarters are just around the corner, on Mile End Road in fact) and they have stuff to watch which goes beyond TV. I guess this is the one place where a celeb drop-in or two in the form of Joseph Muscat is not unheard of.

In fact, the entertainment is in the mix of customers, from office workers to pure Hamrunizi and Marsin.I was terribly disconcerted by the site of a huge camel toe* fronting 20cm hips and topped with what must have been Mr Darmanin’s finest work hovering somewhere near a chin. The camel toe carrier’s hair was dyed blue-black and came down past her butt. Her children were two in quantity and I wondered where on earth they had popped from as she did not seem to be able to physically accommodate even a kitten. Except maybe in a boob. Her accompanying girlfriend was fat and ugly, which was merciful as two of her would have been way too much for anywhere out of the circus. I couldn’t take my eyes off the tableau. Apparently she’s a regular but I cannot guarantee it.

The traffic eventually cleared but I’d decided, having watched a couple of truck drivers wolf down what seemed to be a very delicious spaghetti Bolognese at 10.30am, to return.

Mile End’s food has become extensive. I don’t know if they make their pizza in-house but their chips certainly come out of bags. When I returned a few days later, the ftira with omelette and bacon was a little too neat for my tastes, not a patch on Buchman’s (in Gzira)’s savagery packed with flavour.  Yet it was freshly made: possibly the only issue was that Buchman has these incredible and very really Maltese ftajjar with huge holes, baked in a wood-burning Maltese ovens. The ones at Milend seem to be coming out of the electric version.

My companion had an amazingly good Chicken Caesar Salad which was nothing like a Caesar: in Malta, chefs like to ‘add’ to original recipes to ‘give’ more, so this one had rocket on the bottom and some kind of dark sauce on top. We found huge cherry tomatoes, raw onion and grated beetroot. It was bizarre and also delicious - I have no idea why they cannot simply call it a chicken salad and that's it. Call it a Mile End Chicken salad then nobody, least of all me, will be able to dispute it.The chicken had been boiled but thankfully, the shreds of meat came from all the part of the chicken, rather than just the tasteless breast.

The service is superbly efficient, fast and friendly throughout.Whether alone in a corner with a cuppa and a greasy paper or with my foreign mate wolfing down his chicken we both felt very welcome.

The Mile End is one of those quirky ‘restaurants’ in Malta which nobody remembers not having: it is simply there. And it is still consistently good and consistently cheap. I will not be waiting for a perfect storm to return.

 

* A camel toe is a … oh just google the damn thing. And while you’re at it try ‘pearl necklace’ too: get yourself an education

** Mr Darmanin is a very good plastic surgeon from Malta. He does most of Malta’s sex-change operations and no single man on the island has seen as many boobs as he has.

*** Mona Farrugia is a food and travel writer from Malta. She has been reviewing restaurants in Malta and around the world since 1999: the year Prince told us the world would end.