Little Kingston Jamaican Restaurant

September 17, 2018

Windsor Hills (Los Angeles), California – While driving through the area, I saw the sign for this place. Any sign advertising a Jamaican restaurant is bound to catch my eye. There was no question I’d eventually visit this place. So I made plans to visit after an appointment the next time was in the city.

The sign for Little Kingston Jamaican Restaurant can be seen from a distance. Getting to the restaurant itself can be a bit of a challenge. It sits in a small lot behind Wienerschnitzel. My advice is to park on Ladera Park Ave (note that it’s a one-way street), on Slauson, or on La Brea. I wouldn’t recommend trying to park in the tiny lot. It only has a couple of spaces and it is not very easy to get out once you get in.

As you walk up to the restaurant, you’ll pass a huge menu on the outside window. The patio is right out in front of the door. It has two umbrellas providing shade to a round table and circular bench seats. There are two more umbrellas but these cover tables that sit on barrels. These are attended by chairs ingeniously cut from barrels and brightly painted.

Once you enter the restaurant, you’ll notice the walls are painted green, yellow, and black – the colors of the Jamaican flag. There are a handful of framed posters, including, of course, Bob Marley. Along the walls are a couple of red vinyl bench seats. A half-dozen or so wooden tables with metal posts each have two faux wicker chairs. Two flat screen televisions hang on the wall. Jamaican music plays over the speakers. The display case is filled with Jamaican snacks, coffee, sauces, drinks, trinkets, and Little Kingston gear. Along the west side are three tall tables with modern wood and metal chairs.

I stepped up to the counter and placed my order. Since this was my first time here, I knew I had to try their jerk chicken. I decided to get the Small Jerk Chicken Plate ($13), and the Small Short Rib Plate ($16). Beef patties are a must, so I got one beef and one chicken patty ($3 each or 2 for $5). For drinks, I got one Tropical Rhythms Fruit Punch and one Tropical Rhythms Ginger Sorrell.

(On subsequent visits, I’ve noticed they occasionally have a run on popular items, and at times run out. Grizzada and roti are the two they seem to be out of by time I get there late in the afternoon. “It’s finished,” is usually what I’m told).

I got all this to go. It would serve as lunch and dinner for the next few days.

After I arrived home, the first meal up was the jerk chicken plate. The plate comes with steamed cabbage, rice and peas, plantains, and festival.

The perfectly steamed cabbage has carrots, a few peas, Lima beans, green beans, and a few kernels of corn. Even with being steamed, the vegetables retained a bit of crunch. I could taste a slight hint of seasoning. This brought the flavor up a notch.

I am not really a fan of plantains, but they came with the meal. They did have some firmness, which is good. Even though I’m not a plantain fan, I especially dislike soggy ones.

Rice and peas? Delicious! I could actually taste the rice and it was seasoned nicely. The peas (beans) were firm and tasty. Just about perfect. A sprig of thyme was added on top for good measure. The festival was a bit small but still good. I liked the slightly sweet taste. It helps to slightly temper the heat of the jerk seasoning. Slightly.

When I tasted the chicken, I was pleased to find it was tender and boasted a smoky flavor from the grill. Next, the jerk seasoning hit. Careful. That jerk spice hangs back a bit before it rushes your taste buds…and your lips.

The chicken is good enough to eat just as it is. But Little Kingston gives you a small container of jerk sauce on the side. Remove the lid and the heat from the spice hits your nostrils. Are sure you want to do this? Absolutely! Bring it on! (A word of caution: If you prefer a milder level of spice on your food, do not add the jerk sauce).

This sauce does bring it. It goes very well with the chicken. Had my mouth singing its praises for several minutes after I finished. Ok, feeling the heat for several minutes afterward.

The beef patty and the chicken patty were both very good. The pastry shell was nice and flaky, just as it should be. The ground beef and the chicken filling were both creamy and nicely spiced. I wish I could tell you some of the spices in there but I just can’t distinguish any of them.

The short ribs plate also comes with steamed cabbage, rice and peas, festival. The ribs were tender, though not quite fall-off-the-bone tender. But the bone pulled away from meat with no effort. It is a bit hard to describe the sauce, but it complements the meat well. I had some Grace Jamaican Jerk BBQ Sauce at home and decided to put some of that on the ribs. Oh, man! What flavor! (Shhhh. Don’t tell Little Kingston I did that).

The first time I had jerk barbecue ribs was in a hotel in Ocho Rios. They were mind-blowing. I made some at home using the Grace barbecue sauce. They were mind-blowing, too. These short ribs, after adding the Grace sauce, were better than both of them.

Grace Jerk BBQ sauce is good enough on its own. It almost makes you want to drink it straight from the bottle and bypass the middleman, er, meat.

Let’s talk about the Tropical Rhythms drinks for a moment. Starting with the fruit punch, it has mango, guava, pineapple, grape, orange, lime, passion fruit, and papaya juices. I could taste almost every one of those fruits in there. It has the consistency of a thin puree. Only thing missing is the rum. Hmmm. That gives me an idea…

I would love to tell you how the ginger sorrell tastes. Heck, I’d like to know how the ginger sorrell tastes myself. But I was goofing around, spinning the bottle on my palm and flipping it into the air while I waited for the meal to warm up…and dropped it. Fortunately, the bottle itself didn’t break into too many pieces, but the contents went all over the kitchen floor.

Dining in is nice. You get the full atmosphere with Jamaican music and a lot of Jamaican Patois being spoken. But be forewarned, Little Kingston does a very brisk take-out business. Sometimes it can get quite crowded as people come in to pick up their orders.

Though I’ve been to Kingston, Jamaica a couple of times, I’ve never dined in any of the restaurants there. So I can’t vouch for whether or not Little Kingston brings the taste of Kingston. But I have dined in Ocho Rios many times, including roadside jerk centres. Little Kingston’s fare tastes more like the food in Ocho Rios; closer to it than any other Jamaican restaurant I’ve tried in the States.

Little Kingston Jamaica Restaurant – 5 forks. Very highly recommended. Big up, Little Kingston!

 

Lee’s Caribbean Restaurant and Market

September 11, 2017

Inglewood, California – I had unknowingly passed by this place several times during my visits to Inglewood. It wasn’t until I stopped at a traffic light some time later that I saw it in the corner of a strip mall. When I noticed it was a Jamaican restaurant, I made plans to visit the next time I was in the area.

As I mentioned, Lee’s Caribbean Restaurant and Market sits in a strip mall. There’s plenty of parking in the lot, but be aware that a couple of the stalls are in tight and/or precarious locations. 

Once you walk in, you’ll find yourself in a large area of mostly unused space. Not sure if they use all that space for any other purpose but it certainly could be used for dancing and/or dining for larger events.

The interior of the space is painted green. A large map of Jamaica and her parishes is painted on the north wall. Maybe a dozen tables with chairs are scattered across the room. The counter has a handful of stools posted in front of it. There is a flat screen TV above the counter.  A small ‘market’ sits off to the left side of the counter. It felt like being in a market in Jamaica.

After perusing the menu for a minute or two, I decided to get a large order of Jerk Chicken ($13.50), a side order of short ribs ($11.25), a Ting ($2.75), and a Tropical Rhythms Fruit Punch ($3.25). I got all this to go.

While I waited for my order to be prepared, I checked out the market. I was sold when I saw that they carried all my favorite Jamaican foods, sauces, and drinks all in one place. In addition to the meals, I ended up with some jerk BBQ sauce (you have got to try this on jerk pork ribs), Walkerswood jerk seasoning (I use this when I make jerk chicken at home), and a can of callaloo. 

Let’s get started: The jerk chicken comes with rice and peas with ‘gravy’ on the rice, plantains, vegetables (cabbage), and festival. 

Those vegetables will wake you up. They are seasoned with lots of pepper. The broth they cook them in is flavorful yet still allows the taste of the cabbage to come though. I enjoyed these.

As you may know by now, I am not a fan of plantains so I ate these fairly quickly without paying much attention to the taste. The festival was good but did not make much of an impression on me beyond that.

The rice in the rice and peas was pretty fluffy, not dry. I was glad to see that. The extra ‘gravy’ also carries some heat. That is not something I expected. Mixed together, it takes just a tiny bit of attention away from the flavor of rice and peas while at the same time taking the taste up another level.

Careful, that jerk chicken packs some heat. It’s just about right for me but if you are sensitive to very spicy foods, you might want try a different dish. Lee’s does a good job cooking the chicken; it was very tender. Though it is quite spicy, it is not overly so; you can still taste the chicken itself.

I had the Ting with the jerk chicken. Even though it is a carbonated drink and doesn’t do anything to alleviate the heat of the chicken, it is very cool and refreshing. I’ve come to believe that Ting is the perfect accompaniment to jerk chicken. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that Ting always reminds me of the first time I had it in Jamaica.

Moving to the short ribs, they were very tender. So tender in fact, meat from one of the ribs had already fallen off the bone by the time I opened the container. As far as the taste, it carried a subtle but hearty beefy flavor. The ribs were cooked well and still had a lot of the juices. The Tropical Rhythms Fruit Punch went very well with the ribs.

I was very glad I stopped in here. A restaurant with good food and a market with my favorite Jamaican products in the same place? What more could a lover of Jamaican food want?

Lee’s Caribbean Restaurant and Market – 4.5 forks. Highly recommended. A virtual one-stop shop for Jamaican food and drink. Except the rum part.