Pan - I can attest to the fact that Sushi Umi is now open and in the old location of Amate. I haven't been yet, but plan on it in the coming week. A friend of mine went there a day after opening and said it was good, standard sushi. I hope they do alright at that location, it's a tight space to run a restaurant!
we stopped in today for a quick bite to eat. i had the vegetarian tacos, which came with rice and my husband had the pork burrito. i also had the cactus empanada to start. the empanada was great, though different than others i have had.
we really enjoyed it and the place was full when we got there. one couple kindly shared their table with us and we got to have a peek at their tortilla soup. it looked wonderful and just the thing for a cold day.
while we were there, someone dropped off a review that ann desbrisay had written in the citizen.
Will echo the words of others to the effect of Amate being a friendly and tasty little addition to the Wellington st. hood.
Having just finished a soup at Bridgehead (good, but under-filling), i wasn't super-hungry & decided on a couple basics for take-away - a tortilla soup (i like soup!) and a veggie-burrito.
Both were really good, the soup spicy, fresh and flavorful, and the burrito packed w/ rice, beans and (at my server's prompting) tofu. Rib-sticking goodness, it certainly satiated in style and abundance.
With apologies to Agave (a couple doors down), Amate will steal my business when i'm looking for burritos and similar, and I'll definitely be back for some of the other items mentioned in previous reviews.
my family and i tried amate for brunch this weekend. the lunch menu has changed from what the earlier posters have tried. we stuck to the brunch menu of eggs - served from 10-2pm. i can't remember the names of the dishes, but my husband had the diablo type eggs. this was two toasted corn tortillas, with a fried egg on each. one covered in a spicy red sauce, the other a spicy green. included was a side of refried beans - authentic mexican style. it was really good and he is very excited to go and try more dishes.
i had the vegetarian omlette. this has a roasted pepper type sauce on top. it was not spicy, but had a lot of flavour. on the side were beans and a pile of lettuce with tomatoes and onions. it also came with warm corn tortillas to scoop everything up with.
the coffee was very good, a papua new guinea blend from south america (no diner style coffee here). we also had a can of mango nectar - delicious. you can help yourself to ice water and extra coffee (refills are $0.70).
my son is too young to eat anything on the menu, so he enjoyed the snacks i brought for him. the owner was very friendly and made the rounds checking on people. it had a steady stream of customers of all ages. all the tables were constantly changing over.
there was a family with two kids behind us and a mom and son just as we were leaving. the young son told me that he had the best hot chocolate there and recommended it to us :)
for 4 coffees, 1 juice, 2 brunch dishes and an extra order of tortillas to sop up the sauce(not sure if we were charged for these) was $24.
Tasty. Real tasty. I like the food HOT, so we asked for extra "Salsa Diablo", the devil's sauce... a great depth of flavour that was more then just spicy! MMmmmmm
Also on the menu are burritos, tostadas, and other real mexican city street food!
Stopped by Amate today, and found that they do in fact have Corn Tortillas, made with corn flour (rather than the tortillas from the Blue Menu line at PC, which are wheat flour with corn as the second-to-last ingredient).
I was super pleased with how knowledgeable and friendly the staff was, and given that they have received really strong reviews otherwise, I think I will be back for a meal!
Chimichimi