green beans | Snorkeling the ABC Islands

Kome is the Papiamentu word for “Eat.” It’s a restaurant that was conceived by a couple of ex-pats to serve tasty food, as locally sourced as possible. The food is fresh as fresh can be! The staff is beyond wonderful. The heritage building has been tastefully remodeled into a welcoming airy space.

They have lots of beer choices, probably the largest beer menu on the island. There was a choice of a couple of types of sangria as well: We tried the watermelon sangria. It was an interesting choice, but I switched to beer after one glass! I enjoyed the sangria, but, well, beer is more my style.

The food: we went on my birthday with a couple of friends for the Wednesday tapas menu. It’s a wide ranging menu, with seafood, beef, pork, chicken and vegetarian dishes. They suggested we order two or three dishes each, and they would bring two or three at time, so the table wouldn’t become overloaded. I would suggest that two would be enough for most women, and three for men. We ordered lots of different dishes and shared them between us, as they came.

We chose dishes like chicken and waffles, wild mushrooms on toast, green beans in a sriracha sauce, buffalo chicken sliders, pulled pork tacos, crab Rangoon, blackened fish tacos, flatiron steak, hoisin ribs and more! We did order too much. I liked everything we ordered, with a special shout out to the green beans and the fish tacos. Pam really loved the ribs. The buffalo chicken sliders were especially spicy, and I loved them too. The only dish I would not order again was the crab rangoon. It was a generous serving, but I just didn’t “Love” them as much as everything else.

I would have no trouble eating again any of the dishes we ordered. Just a great sampling of food. Each was wonderfully presented, cooked very very well, and delivered in a great way. We ate and ate and dishes kept arriving, and it was really a wonderful dinner. The company was amazing, and the night just flew by! Couldn’t have had a better time.

The staff are really a special collection of people. They are truly motivated to give you an experience that is virtually unparalleled on Curacao. It ranks with the best service I’ve ever had, anywhere in the world. The only problem is that this level of service will spoil you for so many other restaurants on Curacao!

Rank: 10/10 There is nothing this restaurant can do to improve.

I make this green papaya salad, a Thai specialty, and I’ve gotten a few requests on how to make it, so I’ve decided to put in a blog post.

The salad ingredients:

Green Papaya (sometimes called cooking papaya – not a red or orange one)
A handful of green beans
tomatoes (the little “grape tomatoes” if you want, but I just use whatever tomato I have around.)
hot peppers – to your taste – I usually use two jalapenos
a handful of peanuts

The sauce:

two or three garlic gloves
the juice of a lime
Thai basil
fish sauce
salt
sugar (I use fake sugar – two packets)

To make it:

First, the green papaya. They come in varying sizes, so hard to put a figure on it, but say you get one about the size of two fists… Use half to serve 3 or 4 good sized portions. Cut the papaya in half. Take out the seeds, and discard them. Peel the papaya. Then grate it into a bowl.

Trim the beans, and chop into bite size pieces.

Chop up the jalapenos quite small, discarding the seeds.

Take about a cup of water, stick it into a two cup measuring cup, and slap it into the microwave for 3 minutes on high, or until the water boils. Drop the beans and the jalapeno pieces into the water and leave it for 20-30 seconds. Immediately rinse under cold water. Drain the water and throw the beans and jalapenos in with the grated green papaya.

Now make the sauce. Smash the garlic gloves, and chop them finely. Pour a half teaspoon of salt over the chopped garlic and let it sit while you juice the lime. I have a great gadget for juicing a lime, and so I just chop the lime into about 6-8 pieces and use the “squisher” and put the juice into a measuring cup. Add the two packets of fake sugar and about a tablespoon of the fish sauce. Now press your knife into the salt/garlic mixture and squish it. Then throw it into the lime/sugar/fish sauce mixture. Chop up about 8 or 10 leaves of the Thai basil and throw it in. Give it a good whisk with a fork.