Tomate y Amor

Tomate y Amor
Calle 48 and Calle Uruguay
Panama City, Panama

When I went last year to Panama, there was a reason: the wedding of my friend Andrea and her now husband Enrique. If you look at the date of closely, you could easily find out it was around this time when they got married. So, more or less in their wedding anniversary, I took them to dinner. While Andrea was on holidays during those days, Enrique wasn’t. So, despite I was a bit of a foreigner (literally), I took the time to organize where and when. Originally, old schoolmate Jennifer was to join us but things happened and it was only Andrea, Enrique and me. The restaurant I chose? Tomate y Amor.

Even if you can’t read Spanish, if you speak/write/read a Romance language, you can easily guess Tomate is tomato. What about Amor? That is the Spanish word for love. According to one of the waiters, the tomato side of the name is because that ingredient adds to the overall taste to the food and love is the passion head chef Zana gives to each of the dishes. And I will have to say that, unlike a lot of chefs whose picture appear in the restaurant site, she is actually in the kitchen! (I was able to see here expediting the orders through a small window). In fact, by the end of our meal, she was making rounds and talking to the customers. When was the last time you experienced this?

Since I was on holidays, I arrived around 7:30 p.m., the time we originally planned the dinner for. If you have been long enough in Panama, one of those things that can really piss you off is how leisurely things work, not to mention the inefficiency. As, similar to what happened in Ten Bistro, I will have to admit that the service was top notch after I walked in. From guiding me to the table, timing, and so on. OK, it is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination; however, compared to what I have been used to, service was pretty good! Anyway, while waiting for Andrea and Enrique, I ordered a drink.

I am not that much of a beer drinker; in fact, I seldom order drinks. Once in a while, I will open a bottle of wine (just to consume a glass and a half at most, the rest to be cooked) but that seldom happens. In this case, I ordered this drink because of its silly name: Green beer. Yes, it was indeed green. Makes me wonder if they missed the memo about St. Patty’s day already past… Anyway, either I have been building my tolerance or what but this is a really light beer. In fact, it tasted almost like a herbal soda. I won’t try to give any judgement about this drink given my lack of experience with alcohol.

Now, moving to the actual food. I offered to pay for the whole meal, again, given it was their anniversary. However, because of this fact, I have the odd suspicion they held back on the dishes to order. For example, Andrea was originally going to order a sandwich. A sandwich??? OK, she is thin (according to her, size 5/6?) but, c’mon, a sandwich??? I told them not to hold back – after all, last time, they paid for me… Regardless, after flying all the way, I won’t stop by ordering just the main dishes. So, we started with…

Patacón de pixbae. First, as a reminder of what is patacón, please check mi visit to Mi Ranchito. The twist here is that, instead of using green plantain, it uses a fruit called pixbae (colloquially pifa or piba). In its raw form, this fruit that resembles a miniature version of a young coconut. After it is boiled, that resulting fruit (smaller than a tennis ball) has a starchy, fibrous texture with a bit of a nutty, dry taste. Here, it was prepared with a twist by boiling it in salted water (and normally, it will end here), smashing it and then frying it lightly to crisp it. I will have to say this is quite an acquired taste and, in my case, given I have eaten pixbae in its “normal” iteration, I found it interesting but I will rather stick with the normal version.

Last week, I posted pictures of ceviche but intentionally skipped this one. Here, ceviche de corvina C’mon, you got to admit this looks GOOD!!! While the one I had in Mi Ranchito had a lot more of lime/lemon juice, here it was less marinated in the citric juices, hence it was more borderline a fish version of a steak tartare. In addition to the light citric taste, it also had a coconut taste to it. I won’t necessarily call it ceviche but, regardless, taste wise, it was good….

Complimentary bread and butter drizzled with balsamic vinegar. This was quite a nice touch. The bread was still warm and several types was offered. What really blew it was the butter drizzled with balsamic. Usually we have either butter or olive oil (this later one, usually with balsamic vinegar). However, they mixed it in this case. Normally it won’t be a big deal except the butter was soft and the balsamic vinegar taste was infused into the butter. Ah, the best of both worlds!

Spaghetti en salsa de tomate de la casa con albóndigas de carne angus or Spaghetti in house tomato sauce with angus beef meatballs. I will forgive Enrique for ordering this: his original thought was to order a steak but they ran out of it that day… So, in the end, he ordered spaghetti and meatballs. Truth is, I really wanted him to order something else. The dish wasn’t bad, just that… Well, it is a bit too simple of a dish. The pasta was cooked slightly past my preferred al dente level but, otherwise, it is what you would expect from it.

Risotto De Mariscos y Azafrán or Seafood and saffron risotto. As mentioned originally, Andrea wanted to go for a sandwich. I managed to convince her to order this dish instead, despite her hesitation. As for the dish itself, I know it is orange yellow. A bit too much orange yellow you might say… But, this is mainly thanks to the saffron. And, despite it is not that noticeable, it had a lot of small chunks of different type of seafood. The consistency was quite thick and creamy. If it didn’t know better, you could say it had cream in it! This was definitely a winner.

Once again, remember this picture?

Yes, it is a whole octopus! Or, as per their menu, grilled whole octopus, served with capers and potatoes. It was well cooked, with some bite in it but, by no means, chewy. A contrast from the one in Ten Bistro, yet good in its own ways. The octopus itself didn’t have an unique taste; however, the grill taste was there (which was also balanced a little bit by the mayo). A little bit of an acquired taste but worth a try.

Sorbeto de Maracuyá or passion fruit sorbet. Unlike most girls, I had to really push Andrea to order a dessert. In the end, we ordered this to share between the three of us. I am sure most people have had some form of passion fruit dish but a lot of times its taste is quite standard (similar to that of mango lassi where, regardless of the restaurant, it taste exactly the same). Here, it had a fragrant taste in it, plus it had acidic note. If you like passion fruit before, you will definitely like this; if not, you could still eat it without much complaining. The mint on top, well, just topped it!

While my visit to Ten Bistro was a look from a chef from afar taking a stab at local Panamanian ingredients, ultimately, my visit to Tomate y Amor is a look from a local chef taking a stab at the same ingredients but trying to make it with a more international twist. In the end, I believe it succeeded. Would I come back? If it wasn’t because I can only go to that many restaurants when I go to Panama, I would definitely do so.

Tagged under: Latin America • Panama City • Rice • Seafood