The catch of the day is – Amanda Ciappara!
I lure her into meeting me at Fra Giuseppe wine bar in Dun Spir Sammut Street Balzan for some wining and dining and of course to give our tongue muscle some concentrated exercise! I’m dying to get her to dish out the hot, old behind the scenes stories at NET. Has she ever had a catfight with the glamorous Louise Tedesco or Stephanie Farrugia?
Fra Giuseppe is a 300 year old building which restoration has transformed into an immaculate model of wellbeing, inspired by the mystic qualities of that era. It gives the impression of a self respecting wine bar, whose main goal is to please its customers. It has a lower level, with a small conglomeration of tables by the entrance and one placed directly in front of the toilet (for the voyeurs!), and an upper level where one finds a set of eight tables in a charming room.
Up here, the ceilings are high, and perhaps make the room a little less cosy. However, it oozes authenticity and the cardinal red wall on the east side of the room is a delightful contrast to the traditional stone walls.
Right on the hour Amanda shows up. She is wrapped up in an orchestration of browns, and it seems her hairdresser has also used a glorious shade of brown to tone down the once-honeyed hair colour she sported. She looks very good, and completely adorable, with a glowing complexion and a petite nose Michael Jackson would go back to black for!
The table I have chosen happens to be slightly wobbly so I suggest we change it and we take another one directly in front of a small wine cellar that looks like a mini shrine.
We talk, we talk, we talk. The waitress (probably) inwardly swears, and swears, and swears. She comes to us several times, dressed in signature black, with a beautiful white smile that clearly indicates she has been spending good time using her toothpaste and flossing her teeth.
“I think we should look at the menus and order,” Amanda finally says.
And so we do! There are 13 pages of different wines from South Africa, Chile, New Zealand, Uruguay, and even North America. There is also a very good selection of Maltese wines and prices start at 9.00 Euro with the most expensive being a Ceuso Az. Agri from Sicily priced at 39.00 Euro. Although the food menu is not extravagant it is exciting and there are chocolate and cheese fondues, ftiras, salads, platters, and wraps.
Amanda chooses a Rose D’Alghero Sella & Mosca from Sardinia, confessing on a wine-bar floor that she is pro-Italian. She then goes on to settle for a high-calorie chicken wrap and I am easily tempted into choosing one myself. I fall from grace – Chicken wrap it is!
Our Spanish looking waitress with the great Colgate smile takes down the order and leaves.
The room is filling up; An older gent and his Kate Gonzi looking wife, three men with potential nerd appeal, and a young man embracing a strikingly good looking girlfriend with a bad case of acne. The nerdy boy-group eye the girl, inwardly knowing there is no chance on earth she is going to give them any attention. Focus on your wine boys!
For those of you who do not know, Amanda is no longer an anchor woman for Net TV news. She now holds a completely different post, but tells me that journalism is still very much ingrained in her heart. So I take the opportunity and ask my first playful question for the evening: “Who has the sexiest newscasters – ONE Tv or Net Tv?”
She’s quick with her reply, and her confidence shines like a Liz Taylor diamond. “ONE Tv have the sexiest newscasters… but not necessarily the wittiest!” My oh My Amanda! I’d love some names…..
I reward her playfulness with a little smile, inwardly wondering if I made a mistake not to invite Miriam Dalli over to have her say.
Ms Colgate is back with the wine. She shows us the bottle, and asks who would like to taste, and I force Amanda into it.
“I’m not good at this,” she admits. “I’m only good at drinking wine!”
The Rose D’Alghero turns out to be a good choice. I recommend it to all those who enjoy a refreshing palate of ripe and small fruits. Perhaps not the perfect choice for our chicken wraps, but we do not mind.
The wraps are priced at 6.00 Euro and are served to us with tortilla chips and some lettuce. They are filled with sliced chicken, mozzarella, onions, and tomatoes, and served at a warm temperature.
When the Colgate girl finally leaves, we continue our conversation and I discover that behind the confident exterior there is a loving girl with strong values, who rises to challenges but balances her life in an orderly way. There is nothing synthetic about her.
I decide to play naughty. I ask her whom she would like to find in her bed when she wakes up. Ahaaa! This catches her off guard and she says she needs some time to think.
I grant her that time, and go downstairs to use the toilets.
I’m not too impressed by the toilet. It is a standard bathroom that looks like a shower, but is kept strikingly clean. I was hoping for some more inventiveness in the design.
I walk outside and run into an acquaintance of mine who introduces me to her latest beau who happens to be a lawyer with eyes that could stun a nation. I wonder how long he will last. She does have a history of using her men like Kleenex. They are usually very disposable. I notice that her current beau is slightly nervous. He has got “Cheating on my wife but I’m keeping this discreet” emblazoned on his forehead.
Back upstairs Amanda is ready with her answer. “Bono… and Johnny Depp! I can’t decide!” she tells me with subtitles reading: Give me a break!
The waitress with the good teeth comes to collect our dishes and asks if everything has been fine. I honestly reply that everything is great. I like Fra Giuseppe. The atmosphere gives you a good vibe, the waiting staff friendly, and the rooms pleasant. Their wine menu is good, and the food is also good though one should not expect anything over-the-top.
It’s around 11 pm and people keep milling in. There isn’t one free table available now, which is a positive sign. I’m thinking that maybe it would be an intelligent move to book the next time I pop over. We ask the nice waitress for the bill, and she delivers it a few minutes later on a sleek silver tray. It amounts to 28.40 Euro for the Sardinian wine, two chicken wraps and a small bottle of water.
Amanda stops over to chat with a group of people she knows on the way out and when she is ready, we head downstairs and walk outside into the gushing wind. There is a table full of young people dressed like Eskimos outside, getting high on wine and enjoying some Fra Giuseppe food. Quite brave, I think, for them to sit outside in the cold.
“There is something I am curious about,” I tell Ms Ciappara – the ex-newscaster/journalist who is known to have grilled a couple of politicians with her questions. “If you had to tattoo a face on your skin…for life…. Whose face would you choose between Jason Micallef and Joseph Muscat?”
Her eyes almost pop out and she bursts into little giggles. “Now that’s a tough one,” she complains jokingly.
I can let you wait another week for the answer, but instead I’ll quench your curiosity and reveal Amanda’s choice immediately. Amanda Ciappara would have Jason Micallef tattooed on her skin… “Just because I know him better,” she adds. Well, Amanda’s peachy skin will sizzle for life!
Rating 1 - 7
Wine - ****** Ambience *****
Food - ***** Service *****
I lure her into meeting me at Fra Giuseppe wine bar in Dun Spir Sammut Street Balzan for some wining and dining and of course to give our tongue muscle some concentrated exercise! I’m dying to get her to dish out the hot, old behind the scenes stories at NET. Has she ever had a catfight with the glamorous Louise Tedesco or Stephanie Farrugia?
Fra Giuseppe is a 300 year old building which restoration has transformed into an immaculate model of wellbeing, inspired by the mystic qualities of that era. It gives the impression of a self respecting wine bar, whose main goal is to please its customers. It has a lower level, with a small conglomeration of tables by the entrance and one placed directly in front of the toilet (for the voyeurs!), and an upper level where one finds a set of eight tables in a charming room.
Up here, the ceilings are high, and perhaps make the room a little less cosy. However, it oozes authenticity and the cardinal red wall on the east side of the room is a delightful contrast to the traditional stone walls.
Right on the hour Amanda shows up. She is wrapped up in an orchestration of browns, and it seems her hairdresser has also used a glorious shade of brown to tone down the once-honeyed hair colour she sported. She looks very good, and completely adorable, with a glowing complexion and a petite nose Michael Jackson would go back to black for!
The table I have chosen happens to be slightly wobbly so I suggest we change it and we take another one directly in front of a small wine cellar that looks like a mini shrine.
We talk, we talk, we talk. The waitress (probably) inwardly swears, and swears, and swears. She comes to us several times, dressed in signature black, with a beautiful white smile that clearly indicates she has been spending good time using her toothpaste and flossing her teeth.
“I think we should look at the menus and order,” Amanda finally says.
And so we do! There are 13 pages of different wines from South Africa, Chile, New Zealand, Uruguay, and even North America. There is also a very good selection of Maltese wines and prices start at 9.00 Euro with the most expensive being a Ceuso Az. Agri from Sicily priced at 39.00 Euro. Although the food menu is not extravagant it is exciting and there are chocolate and cheese fondues, ftiras, salads, platters, and wraps.
Amanda chooses a Rose D’Alghero Sella & Mosca from Sardinia, confessing on a wine-bar floor that she is pro-Italian. She then goes on to settle for a high-calorie chicken wrap and I am easily tempted into choosing one myself. I fall from grace – Chicken wrap it is!
Our Spanish looking waitress with the great Colgate smile takes down the order and leaves.
The room is filling up; An older gent and his Kate Gonzi looking wife, three men with potential nerd appeal, and a young man embracing a strikingly good looking girlfriend with a bad case of acne. The nerdy boy-group eye the girl, inwardly knowing there is no chance on earth she is going to give them any attention. Focus on your wine boys!
For those of you who do not know, Amanda is no longer an anchor woman for Net TV news. She now holds a completely different post, but tells me that journalism is still very much ingrained in her heart. So I take the opportunity and ask my first playful question for the evening: “Who has the sexiest newscasters – ONE Tv or Net Tv?”
She’s quick with her reply, and her confidence shines like a Liz Taylor diamond. “ONE Tv have the sexiest newscasters… but not necessarily the wittiest!” My oh My Amanda! I’d love some names…..
I reward her playfulness with a little smile, inwardly wondering if I made a mistake not to invite Miriam Dalli over to have her say.
Ms Colgate is back with the wine. She shows us the bottle, and asks who would like to taste, and I force Amanda into it.
“I’m not good at this,” she admits. “I’m only good at drinking wine!”
The Rose D’Alghero turns out to be a good choice. I recommend it to all those who enjoy a refreshing palate of ripe and small fruits. Perhaps not the perfect choice for our chicken wraps, but we do not mind.
The wraps are priced at 6.00 Euro and are served to us with tortilla chips and some lettuce. They are filled with sliced chicken, mozzarella, onions, and tomatoes, and served at a warm temperature.
When the Colgate girl finally leaves, we continue our conversation and I discover that behind the confident exterior there is a loving girl with strong values, who rises to challenges but balances her life in an orderly way. There is nothing synthetic about her.
I decide to play naughty. I ask her whom she would like to find in her bed when she wakes up. Ahaaa! This catches her off guard and she says she needs some time to think.
I grant her that time, and go downstairs to use the toilets.
I’m not too impressed by the toilet. It is a standard bathroom that looks like a shower, but is kept strikingly clean. I was hoping for some more inventiveness in the design.
I walk outside and run into an acquaintance of mine who introduces me to her latest beau who happens to be a lawyer with eyes that could stun a nation. I wonder how long he will last. She does have a history of using her men like Kleenex. They are usually very disposable. I notice that her current beau is slightly nervous. He has got “Cheating on my wife but I’m keeping this discreet” emblazoned on his forehead.
Back upstairs Amanda is ready with her answer. “Bono… and Johnny Depp! I can’t decide!” she tells me with subtitles reading: Give me a break!
The waitress with the good teeth comes to collect our dishes and asks if everything has been fine. I honestly reply that everything is great. I like Fra Giuseppe. The atmosphere gives you a good vibe, the waiting staff friendly, and the rooms pleasant. Their wine menu is good, and the food is also good though one should not expect anything over-the-top.
It’s around 11 pm and people keep milling in. There isn’t one free table available now, which is a positive sign. I’m thinking that maybe it would be an intelligent move to book the next time I pop over. We ask the nice waitress for the bill, and she delivers it a few minutes later on a sleek silver tray. It amounts to 28.40 Euro for the Sardinian wine, two chicken wraps and a small bottle of water.
Amanda stops over to chat with a group of people she knows on the way out and when she is ready, we head downstairs and walk outside into the gushing wind. There is a table full of young people dressed like Eskimos outside, getting high on wine and enjoying some Fra Giuseppe food. Quite brave, I think, for them to sit outside in the cold.
“There is something I am curious about,” I tell Ms Ciappara – the ex-newscaster/journalist who is known to have grilled a couple of politicians with her questions. “If you had to tattoo a face on your skin…for life…. Whose face would you choose between Jason Micallef and Joseph Muscat?”
Her eyes almost pop out and she bursts into little giggles. “Now that’s a tough one,” she complains jokingly.
I can let you wait another week for the answer, but instead I’ll quench your curiosity and reveal Amanda’s choice immediately. Amanda Ciappara would have Jason Micallef tattooed on her skin… “Just because I know him better,” she adds. Well, Amanda’s peachy skin will sizzle for life!
Rating 1 - 7
Wine - ****** Ambience *****
Food - ***** Service *****
I'm hooked on your articles Mr Borg.
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