Restaurants of Malta 3: Sa Re Ga Ma at the Fortina Hotel and Spa.

The Fortina Spa Resort.

Sa Re Ga Ma Indian Restaurant is located in the Fortina Spa Resort's Tropical Garden in Tigne. This restaurant is not operated by the hotel's management but is leased out to a private operator, whose main aim is to preserve and keep it as an authentic Indian restaurant offering cuisine from various Indian regions, prepared with genuine Indian spices and cooked by Indian Chefs.
Should you book a reservation at this restaurant make sure that the contact telephone numbers given at the end of this review are used as booking through the hotel's reception does not always guarantee that your reservation is passed on to the restaurant. This is a fact as it happened to me and my group on Friday, 14th October. Luckily, we were seated on a very good table for four persons by a very efficient waitress, although the place was nearly fully booked.

The Tropical Garden and pool area.

As stated above, this restaurant is situated in the tropical gardens of the resort, and al fresco dining in Summer, or on a good evening is stupendous. We opted to dine inside, seated at a table with very good views of the surrounding gardens and pools and which provided an ambience far superior to that found in other venues.

The restaurant offer an extensive menu of Indian cuisine, from the al-a-carte menu, and it also offers two, good value for money, set menus for a minimum order for two persons. Our dinner choices fell on the al-a-carte selections as follows:

Sizzling Indian delicacies starter
for two persons.

Starters: To start with we ordered two mixed Indian Special sizzling platters each to be shared between two persons. The platters consisted of choice of king prawns, samosas, chicken tandoori, chicken tikka, spicy lamb roles, onion pancakes and salad,  as illustrated in the photo as taken by myself on serving. Served with a side order of papadams. Very Good.

Personal platter from the dish.

Main Courses: For main coures we also opted to pick a a selection of dishes to share, as this is the way to really enjoy exotic food from these regions of the world. Our choices were a selection of:

Kadhai Pork.

Saag Gosht-Lamb in spinach sauce.

Khadai pork - pork in a rich spicy red sauce; Chicken Korma - chicken cubes in coconut almond and creamy sauce; Saag Gosht - lamb with a rich spinach sauce; and Channa Dal Palak - a spicy lentils dish; Saffron Pulao rice; and cheese filled Nan bread. Very Good.

Chicken Korma.

Personal platter showing selections
including Channa Dal Palak spiced lentils,
papadam and naan bread.

The cuisine was served within reasonable waiting time as everything is cooked fresh as ordered. The personal platters shown, both for the starters as well as for the main course were plated in the way shown, by myself, as the food is served on the table in dishes or bowls also as shown in the photos.

Wine list.

The wine list, did not come to my expectations as it only featured a very limited amount of wines, with just one Maltese wine which normally sells at about Eur5 in supermarkets marked-up to Eur17. I think that the management here really has to take a good look at this wine list, revise the mark-up, and to offer better wines, that suite the menu, at a much better and reasonable mark-up commensurate with the wine quality and vintage.
We settled for a bottle of  Chateau du Cross Bordeaux Sauvignon 2008 at Eur16.50 (which carried about 100% mark-up), for lack of a better choice of a good Maltese wine as reviewed in our Wines of Malta reviews. Average.

Cassatella Siciliana

Desserts offered were a choice from six types of portion size, sourced-out preparations - Cassatella Siciliana, Tiramisu, etc. None of which had anything to do with Indian dessert choices such as Moong Dal Halwa, Kheer or Gulab Jammun,  which, must be freshly-home-made. This is another matter which an "authentic" Indian Restaurant such as Sa Re Ga Ma should look into.




By the way the desserts ordered were quite good and enjoyable, but not authentic Indian, and not home made. We have had the same products offered to us elsewhere. Good.

Tiramisu.

Mango and cranberry filled flan.
(Partly eaten to show filling).

VALUE: Prices at Sa Re Ga Ma are quite reasonable and the above food order (food only) came up to just about Eur86.19; with the order for the wine, two bottles of water and two espressos coming up to another Eur28.4. Total of Eur114.59 or Eur28.65 per person (excluding tip of course). Very Good.

REVIEWERS IMPRESSIONS:

Ambience: Excellent.
Service:     Very Good.
Cuisine, quality, preparation and presentation: Very Good.
Remark:  Authentic Indian Desserts should be introduced.
Wine List:  Average.
Value for money: Very Good.

RATING: 8/10 Category Indian Cuisine.
Recommended.

Location: Fortina Resort And Spa,
                Tigne, Sliema.
Tel:   Direct  23462143 Mobile: 99032951.
Hotel reception: 2346 6666.