Cuisine of Tobago Island for gourmets. Places for dinner - best restaurants

It seems as if the cuisine of Tobago borrowed the traditions of all the other countries in the world. At the heart of the local cuisine lie the traditions from China, Europe, and India, peculiarly combined with different findings of Creole, African, and Mediterranean origin, which eventually give this unique taste to each dish. Local restaurants will offer you traditional, typical for this region, Creole courses callaloo and pigeon peas. The first one is a soup, made with leaves of Okra, coconut, and taro. The second one is also a soup, but quite a spicy one. You should also try mashed green bananas, called tum-tum or tam-tam in other pronunciation, and crushed peas pancakes.

If you like seafood, you will definitely not get hungry in Tulum. Really tiny clams called chip-chip, crabs, prepared with coconut, backed or fried freshwater cascadoo and just a great range of sea fish – that is what you can find in almost every food place on the island. Well, these and a shark. They prepare it in dozens of variants, from frying to tortillas, stuffed with meat of this sea animal.

However, those, who prefer meat, will also find something for themselves. The locals like meat and know how to prepare it well in different variations. Moreover, they like both familiar to us pork, usually served with onion, pepper, cucumbers, and soy sauce, and meat of agouti, possum, which is called here “manicou”, and armadillo, whom the locals call “tattoo”. You can also find lizard courses. However, there are familiar island dishes, such as fried rabbit “lappe”, or pilaf with chicken meat and coconut milk pelau. Curry duck, quite a simple dish, became almost national here, and is prepared in a couple of different variants. They also usually make different meat pies. Copyright www.orangesmile.com

A traditional Tobago dish is Sada Roti tortilla, wrapped with almost everything from peas to potato and pumpkin. They usually eat this for breakfast, as well as accra, fish pancakes. As a side dish to the main course for lunch or dinner you can order callaloo. Made with okra, spinach, and taro leaves, it has quite a spicy taste. However, they can add in callaloo lobsters, meat, pepper or pumpkin, which changes the taste a little bit. This dish goes best with cassava, dumplings, crabs, and sweet potato.

The locals also like a pasta cake. By the way, the cheese, used in this dish, was brought to the island by the British. If you like salads, try bulol, made with codfish and fresh vegetables. If you want to feel the local color at fullest, order chutney sauce made from mango, tamarind, coconut, tomatoes, and bandhaniya. Do you like sweets? Then you will definitely like the Tobago cuisine. Guava paste, nut cake, sugar pies, cassava pastry, steamed guava – there are sweets to any taste! Remember, that desserts here are truly sweet, and you should better not order tea or coffee with sugar to go with them.

When it is too hot, coconut water, coconut jello, and coconut cocktails become very popular. Well, this fruit is already a part of most courses in Tobago cuisine. They also have regular ice cream on island, and a little exotic snow cones. For breakfast the locals drink chocolate tea, made from self-made cocoa-balls, and hot beverage from cassava farine with powdered milk. Different juices and soda are also popular. Most popular alcohol drink is rum, especially Ponche-de-crème and Puncheon rum. The locals also like punch, including the ones made from beetroot, dock, passion fruit, papaya, and apple. Those, who prefer beer, should try Carib beer, Stag beer, Carib Light and Carib Shandys. Their product lines have the tastes of lime, ginger, and dock.