I don’t suppose that technically there’s an absolute, written in stone recipe for Saltimbocca. After all, the Italian word means “jump in the mouth”, and you could probably name a number of ingredients that you might like to have saltim your bocca.
But generally, in Italian restaurants, saltimbocca usually refers to a specific preparation, though even that is open to variations. I’ve had veal saltimbocca and I’ve had chicken saltimbocca. But until I visited Tre Bambine, a new restaurant in the former Spice Modern/Lake Eola Yacht Club space, I had never had meatloaf saltimbocca.
Mind you, it was veal meatloaf, but still.
And as meatloaf goes, it was good. It had a dense texture that I prefer in my loaves of meat, with a nice bit of charred crust. Thankfully, it was not pounded with a mallet, as one would do for conventional saltimbocca.
But even odder than the meatloaf was what accompanied it: a handful of dry, crumbled croutons set to one side of the plate. To give yourself an idea of what this was like, grab a bag of Pepperidge Farms stuffing mix and pour some out onto a plate and nibble away. I can’t imagine there was not a point during menu testing that someone didn’t take a look at this dish and ask, “What the hell’s up with the dried bread crumbs?”
But that dish was the only one that had me shaking my head. I quite enjoyed the Steak and Gorgonzola Flatbread that my companion and I shared as an appetizer.
And the Isabella Fruitti di Mare entree, which included squid ink pasta tossed with a light cream sauce tinged with tomato, was delicious.
Tre Bambine means three babies, and no, I don’t have further information on that).
I’ll definitely return to Tre Bambine, hopefully before they have to change the name to Quattro Bambine. And it will be easy to find my way back: I left a trail of breadcrumbs.
Please click on the clip above to hear Scott's review.
