Gozo Garden

International cuisine with numerous special offers Discuss this article

At this price – Dhs89 for unlimited food and alcoholic drinks – complaining seems unreasonable. The atmosphere may be drab (and thanks to the house band, occasionally painful) and nothing about the place, except for a chalkboard scrawled sign advertising ‘Hawaiian Night’, is particularly Polynesian, but if you take advantage of their drinks deal, you still get more than you paid for.

Unless you get a kick out of bad Filipino Bryan Adams cover bands, you should sit far away from the stage. A stony-faced man pretending to play guitar and tunelessly singing with a girl decked out in early ’90s boho-chic listlessly banging a tambourine, made the unlimited drinks an evermore tempting deal. Their cover of REM’s ‘Losing My Religion’ was a particular lowlight. Apart from a couple of vaguely Mediterranean wagon wheels on the wall, the décor was non-existent. Gozo Garden (presumably, and rather obscurely, named after Malta’s second-biggest island) has the feel of spare lobby space opportunistically utilised, where everything, including guests, is packed closely together.

The food was barely more authentic than the covers band. Over on the starters table, piles of over-mayonnaised salads rose up in mounds, messily arranged around glass vats of fruit. A few dishes survived the creamy onslaught – the green salad, for example, with green beans and peas, was crunchily fresh. On the mains table, the lamb shanks were pleasant-tasting if too dry, and the pork spare ribs had us licking our fingers in appreciation of their juiciness. At a wok station, a chef fried up a passable rendition of seafood stir-fry, but otherwise much of the food was below average. The Makwao chicken with Asian pesto was rubbery and tasteless and it was hard to believe that the lumps of fish that languished in a dull gravy were red snapper. And with an offering of various dry cakes, soggy coconut-tinged bread pudding, and canned-tasting fruit salad, the desserts didn’t fare much better.

Nevertheless we couldn’t see anybody else complaining about the food. The alcohol arrived frequently and in large measures (the inclusion of premium brand spirits and beers is a plus, although the wine is dreadful) and the predominantly package holiday crowd, casually attired in T-shirts and shorts, huddled round the buffet tables with inebriated enthusiasm. At this low price – four drinks and you’ve broken even – Gozo can get away with their dishes being little more than drinking fodder.

• Previous reviews
  • 01 May,2002- reviewed by Carolyn Robb

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