One of the fun things we did in Athens in 2018 when Eve came to join us was to go to a Greek dance show that included a dinner. Eve had arranged it for her mother and it was a terrific evening. Well, I saw an advertisement for a Folklore Dinner Show at a Traditional Restaurant and signed us up. I was hoping that it would be a fun experience. It was held at Ta Marija Restaurant in Mosta which is advertised as Your Gastro Maltese Kitchen since 1964. A couple of nights per week they put on these dinner shows of traditional Maltese dancing. The nice thing was that the tickets included transport to and from Mosta and we got picked up right across the street from our apartment.
The van ride was quite an excursion. The van ultimately picked up 10 passengers from 4 different locations. Except for us, everyone else was in either Paceville or the north side of St. George’s Bay. The traffic at 7:00pm through all these narrow streets where all the big hotels are located, and the major shopping area of St. Julian’s, was just awful. We couldn’t believe what our van driver had to put up with weaving his way around all the construction roadblocks and up and down the busy streets. But eventually, all 10 of us were on board and we made our way to the restaurant in Mosta, about a 30 minute drive.
The 10 of us were shown to our table. Many other vans had also arrived with their passengers and we were kind of squeezed into a very full restaurant. At our table were 2 couples from Greece, a Romanian couple, two women from Texas, and us. Fortunately, our table was close to the dance floor so I thought we would be able to see the dancer pretty well. The dance floor was very small.
The menu was all traditional Maltese food. We could pick a starter and a first course, and then a main course. Christine and I began with Arancina Maltija which was a ball containing Maltese sausage, goat cheese, pistachios, and arborio rice with beans. That was very good. Then for our first course we both picked Ravjul bil Gobon tat-tursina u Zalza tal-Faqqiegh, which was Gorgonzola filled ravioli with creamy button mushroom and truffle oil sauce. The ravioli was really good. By now, we’re already stuffed, but our main course came shortly thereafter. We both selected Fenek Mimli b’Zalza tal-Port which was baked boneless rabbit stuffed with rabbit liver, herbs and rice with fruity port wine sauce with walnuts, sultanas and apricots. Fenek (rabbit) is Malta’s national dish and so we thought we should try it. Carol Farrugia had cooked a rabbit dish for us back in 2016 and we enjoyed it. Even though we were both kind of full, we dug into our rabbit and really enjoyed it. The sauce really made the dish.
All the while we were eating, two guitar players were playing numbers from the great American songbook and people around the restaurant would sing along. One of the musicians liked to imitate Louis Armstrong and he sang a couple of his famous numbers and they ended with What a Wonderful World. The singer did sound like Louis Armstrong.
The dessert came while the dancers were getting set up. It was a vanilla custard, sponge with almond liqueur, berries, Savoiardi biscuits, cream and crushed nuts. That was more than we could handle and after a few bites of the very sweet dessert, we’d had enough.
It was now showtime. The emcee for the evening was the son of the Marija for whom the restaurant is named. He went around the room asking where everyone was from. Lots of eastern Europeans were there. Our table had the only Americans. And of course, birthdays and anniversaries were recognized. One table of Poles were celebrating an engagement that happened that evening.
The dancers finally arrived on the small dance floor. The emcee explained what each dance was about. One was about the ghonnella, the traditional black headgear that women used to wear in Malta.
One of the dance numbers was about doing the washing. It was funny with the dancers scrubbing white cloths and they shared the chore comparing cloths.
There were other themed dances, including one about getting water and vegetables and another about a recently engaged young girl and how the women of the village helped her to prepare.
After the Maltese folklore dancing was over, the emcee announced that transport home wouldn’t be for another 30 minutes, so until that time, he opened up the dance floor for all to dance to music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. And surprisingly, there was a rush to the dance floor. Christine was one of the first up, and then lots of people came onto the dance floor.
It was actually quite fun to see everyone enjoying themselves. The music was joyful. One of the servers was cajoling folks to the dance floor and getting couples to strut their stuff with the group looking on. We mostly watched, because the dance floor, which was kind of like illuminated panels in the floor, seemed to be bouncing a lot and gave us a weird sensation that didn’t feel safe. But we did enjoy the evening.
At 10:30pm, our group of 10 went in search of our van and headed back home. As we were walking down the street to the van, I took the photo below of the side of the famous Mosta Rotunda. It’s a beautiful church, one of our favorites.
Christine and I were fortunate that we were the first to be dropped off and didn’t have to go through all the Paceville traffic. We got home at just a little after 11:00pm. We were glad to be home, but also glad that we had the experience of the folklore dinner show.