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Island
Delight
169-24
Jamaica Avenue
718-297-9800
Cuisine:
Jamaican
Hours:
7 a.m. to midnight, every day
Island
Delight, a new Jamaican restaurant on the aptly named Jamaica Avenue, is
finally getting its break.
The
restaurant opened up in January, to one of the coldest winters in years.
The irony of its name and the weather wasn’t enough to bring it down,
though.
The
staff just huddled by the warmth of their ovens and waited for the cold
spell to be over and for some weather more complimentary to their food.
After
the recent string of warm days and a new “Grand Opening” sign, Island
Delight’s time to shine has come.
There’s
nothing particularly fancy about the restaurant – it just serves great
food quickly and at great prices.
Things
are on the spicy side, so people with sensitive palates will need to
request that the cooks go easy on the seasoning.
But
for people who like spice, Island Delight is a great place to go for a
quickly prepared meal to stay or to go.
The
portions are huge, too, giving the restaurant an added bonus. A small
dinner entrée is big enough to fill two people reasonably, or one person
sinfully. A large dinner entrée can feed two easily and three or four in
a pinch.
The
most popular dish at Island Delight is its oxtail ($7 small, $8.50 large),
followed closely by its jerk chicken ($6.50 small, $8 large).
The
jerk chicken is above-average, perhaps even great. It’s soft and very
flavorful, with that tangy edge that jerk sauce is supposed to have but
doesn’t always at other restaurants.
Other
popular dishes at Island Delight are curried goat (a staff favorite, we
were told), and curried and stewed chicken.
Unlike
most Caribbean restaurants, Island Delight takes extra care to cater to
seafood lovers and vegetarians.
An
extensive seafood menu, with dishes costing between $10 and $20, is heavy
on shellfish. Most popular are the curried and buttered shrimp ($10 small,
$15 large) and curried lobster ($16).
The
most popular vegetarian dishes are the tofu and seitan, a soy bean
concoction that has the texture and taste of meat.
The
restaurant also does a brisk breakfast business, with ackee and saltfish
the most popular item. Porridge is popular enough to get its own menu
section and daily specials.
There’s
a small bakery section that has a few cakes and small pastries, but Island
Delight specializes, when it comes to dessert, in its homemade juices
($2.50 to $3). The
most popular is the carrot juice, a thick but refreshing cocktail made
fresh every day.
Caribbean classics like Irish moss, peanut punch and honey moss are
also very popular.
Island
Delight is a sure bet for anyone looking for great Jamaican meal just
blocks from Downtown Jamaica.
And
with the weather acting more in kind with the calendar now, the restaurant
is in a better position than ever to do what its name promises.
—
Shams Tarek
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