Tana Del Lupo - Food Review

This wasn't a planned trip to try out their food. We were heading home to prepare dinner. As I was turning on the tap to wash my hands, the water flow got lesser and gone in 5 seconds. I was shocked. I knew electricity cut often here, but didn't know about water. I went on to check the other taps in the bathroom, they were still flowing as they run from the water tanks. After few more tries at the kitchen sink, we decided that we should go out for dinner.

Elson drove me to Paceville area, refusing to tell me where we were going. He even tricked me to believed that we were going to the other neighboring restaurants but walking in, then out. Finally we arrived here at 6.55pm. They only start dinner service at 7pm. But the lady was nice enough to let us in earlier.

As we walked through the doors, the decor gave a rustic feeling. Tables and chairs were mainly wooden. You will see antiques decor items around. It was quite a big restaurant. After asking the waitress, this is an Sicilian restaurant. So I guess it was decorated accordingly. I will know after I visit Sicily this coming November. So excited about the upcoming trip.

The service there was great. We were greeted with big smiles, and provided with good recommendations. Their seafood of the day was Sea Dates and Tuna. So we chose Sea Dates Linguine and Grilled Tuna as main course, and mixed seafood platter as starter to share.

Starter mixed seafood platter

It comes with grilled calamari, squid, fish cake, smoked salmon, and grilled prawn. The fish cake was really fresh and tasty, filled generously with anchovies. Grilled prawns were fantastic, very fresh too. I think it was seasoned with salt and grill. I tried peeling the shell off for the first one, and gave up. I think it was meant to eat with the shells. It tasted better with shells where the seasoning was. Smoked salmon was alright, nothing fantastic. Fried calamari was good, however I think it could be a little saltier. Lastly, we didn't quite like the squid.

Main course grilled tuna and sea dates pasta

I tried quite a number of grilled tuna at other restaurants, I felt that this was just average. I asked for medium rare, which meant that the middle part should be raw. It did come that way but wasn't as good as other places that I have tried. Still worth a try though. Grilled tuna comes with sides, fried potatoes and fresh vegetables. The fried potatoes was good, salt were added to the right proportion.

Sea dates pasta was something we didn't try before. We were told that this particular shelled seafood was named sea dates because it literally looked like dates. It was cooked in aglio olio style. It was good but not WOW type. I personally find that the pasta doesn't have much taste, but the sea dates tasted great.

It was a simple dinner on a Thursday night, so we decided to skip dessert and concluded the meal.

Overall verdict good, without the "WOW" factor.

I don't think we will go back to try other dishes there anytime soon. But if you want to try something different, you could give it a try. Total bill was around 57Euros, which I think was alright given that I had 2 big pieces of tuna as main. They do served big portion.



Address:

Tana Del Lupo

58 Wilga Street, Paceville