We had been in Cyprus for over a week and still hadn’t been out to lunch when I finally cracked. Driving around Kato Pafos looking for an Ocean Basket will do that to any food loving human being. Quite what a supposed food lover, let alone a human being was doing looking for an Ocean Basket is best left to the jury although in my defence – the passenger was, and in fact still is a patriotic South African with way beyond reason pregnancy cravings.
At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Goosefat & garlic had been sold to us as the place to eat in Pegeia. Situated roadside on the Coral Bay road it certainly looks the part. Linen tablecloths, quality crockery and a sensibly sized menu which read like a gastro pub classic hits list. All of the usual suspects were here from carrot soup and toad in hole, right down to pie & mash, two types of lasagne, ham, egg & chips and the obligatory mushroom risotto.
It wasn’t as restaurant-ish as I had been led to believe but still, any oasis in a desert and all that, so with a good bottle of Argentinean malbec for comfort, we dived straight in.
I didn’t, and to be honest I still don’t know if wild boar is indigenous to Cyprus. Pork obviously rears well on Cypriot soil and there is plenty of forest for boar to roam but our friendly waiter didn’t seem to know much about it. Or if he did he certainly wasn’t giving anything away.
The wild boar terrine was a good hearty chunk but the comprising meat was dull in both colour and flavour. Parts hinted at spice, a faint waft of juniper trying to escape, but whatever flavour there may have been was trumped by an eternal dryness. Wild boar, the free roaming, pillaging, Viking related cousin of pork is lean by nature. It’s the beauty of the beast – literally. A scavenger of the forest floor, acorn, pine and wild vegetation its loot, boar should taste of its terroir. A gamey, masculine, testosterone driven carnivores wet dream. This was like dry humping a tin of pedigree chum.
Good bread was served with the starters and breaded halloumi was just that. A tourist all time favourite of fried cheese with that unmistakable creamed sheep milk squeak to the teeth. A citrus dressing with just enough tang to combat the oil and some uninspiring salad for good measure.
Mushrooms featured heavily in the main courses but to my knowledge mushrooms grow best in dark, damp, featureless places, like sheds beneath the M25 or Poland, so I asked our waiter what type went into the mushroom risotto or the chicken and mushroom pie and he told me the small ones. Pushed at which dish he would recommend, he told me both, so with those little pearls of wisdom I took the gluttons option and went with the pie.
But my-oh pie what a pie. A proper slice like my Nan used to make with short crust pastry all around and a mahogany glazed top. None of this stew in a bowl with a puff pastry lid lark. The chicken was moist, the mushrooms small and the sauce just a little too thick in the perfect glue to hold it all together kind of way. This was though, as good as it was going to get. Mashed potato had never seen salt and pepper, let alone butter or cream. Runner beans had seen nothing but the inside of a freezer for quite a while and the last thing the gravy saw was Mr. Bisto waving goodbye from the factory gates.
Mr. Bisto to Marco Pierre White is a tenuous link even considering six degrees of separation but the forefather of modern cooking once said any chef worth his salt has a lemon tart recipe up his sleeve. The self proclaimed rock star chef would use nine eggs, the juice and zest of seven Amalfi coast lemons and half a pint of cream to make the tarte au citron that was a permanent menu fixture throughout his groundbreaking career. This most classic of desserts would be baked just minutes before service and then sliced to order. Warm, rich and smooth, the ultimate in lemon decadence.
This nostalgic trip down lemony memory lane comes with the territory. Cyprus has a lemon tree on every corner, none of those waxed to make them appear fresher for longer jobbies, but real life, proper, fresh lemons with leaves and twigs and sweet and sour nectar that could only be ripened in the Mediterranean sun. Quite how it is then that anybody could conspire to ruin this most beautiful of natural resource is beyond me. Two forks of this classic lemon tart enough. The pastry was savoury, the filling a congealed mass of gelatine and cream flavoured with janitors lemon Jif. More like Marco Polo than Pierre White.
Goose Fat & Garlic has the right idea. The menu is small enough to be fresh, the restaurant looks classy and the service slick and polite even if lacking a little in knowledge. This was after all the middle of January, the time in Paphos when most restaurateurs batten down the hatches and take a well earned break, so the fact that they were open at all has to be commended. The bill for two with a good bottle of wine and service was €60 so it’s not expensive by any stretch of the imagination. I would like to think that as the season gets going and the kitchen gets back into full swing so the standards will rise in line with the reputation it has gained in previous years.
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