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.

 

Front Page Jamaican Grille

December 7, 2012

Inglewood, California – How did I end up here today? By violating one of the guidelines I had established for Kanale Eats: Don’t read reviews of the restaurant before you visit. The plan was to visit another restaurant today, but reviews of it were only so-so. This place was noted – twice – as a better option. So I bit, so to speak.

Front Page Jamaican Grille is located in Airport Plaza, a nondescript strip mall with very tight parking stalls. Look for the Airport Plaza sign as you approach. Take care turning into and leaving the mall.

When I walked in, it was like I had walked through a portal straight into Jamaica. No need for a description as you can see from the photos what it looked like.

Dining inside were two guys, one of which worked there, and a husband and wife (I think). One guy was at the counter. Three more people came in during the course of my visit. I say all that to make this point: I ended up speaking to every one of the people there. I have never had that experience before. By speaking to them I found out that all were regulars, some coming in weekly. All LOVED the food. Think I came to the right place? I thought so, and I hadn’t even seen the food yet, let alone tasted it.

Front Page seems to do a brisk business during lunch. Most order ahead for take out, a few dine in. The clientele is very diverse: Asian, Black, Indian, Middle Eastern, White. Most look like they are regulars.

Quite a selection of foods was available on the menu. That included ribs. I asked the lady behind the counter if they were jerked. She said they were. When I casually mentioned that I should try them next time (mind you, I still hadn’t tasted anything yet), “You should!” was her exhortation.

The owner says they have curry goat every day, not just on Sundays. I told the lady behind the counter that in addition to the ribs I would have to try the curry goat next time. Her reply? “What are you waiting for?”

After drooling looking over the menu, I decided on:

Short ribs ($12.75 lunch) and jerk chicken ($10 lunch). The lunches and dinners come with sides of mixed steamed vegetables, fried plantain, and rice and peas. I also ordered a beef patty ($3.00), Reggae Wings ($6.25 for a 4-pack), and festival ($0.75). There was no question what my beverage was going to be: Ting ($1.80). This was all to go as it was going to be my dinner for tonight and lunch for the next couple of days.

If you want to order seafood, you’ll need to have some patience. As it is prepared specifically to your order, Front Page asks that you place your seafood order 45 minutes in advance.

It did not take long to prepare and package my meal. I would’ve have loved to have stayed and eaten dinner here but I needed to brave the traffic to get home before the real rush hour started.

I arrived home and sampled everything. First out of the bag was the beef patty. The beef patty was large. Lots of flaky pastry enveloping the meat. The meat itself was well seasoned and moist. Delicious! Just like being back in Ochi. My mind went right back there after just one bite. I shared some with my son. He liked it, too. It was so good I wished I had ordered another one. If you prefer, Front Page also serves chicken and vegetable patties.

For the uninitiated, Ting is a grapefruit soda. Ting is getting harder to find outside Caribbean markets or Jamaican restaurants so I will order it at nearly every Jamaican restaurant I visit. Served chilled, Ting is very refreshing. With its light, citrusy flavor, I find it goes well with just about any type of Jamaican food. Today’s meal was no exception.

Now let’s talk about those Reggae Wings. They smelled like barbecue when I opened the container lid. So far, so good. Then I tasted them. In a word, they are hot! These wings bring the heat… and then some. These wings will, pardon the cliché, put hair on your chest and burn it back off. Warning: If you are sensitive to spicy food, do not even think about trying these wings, no matter how macho you think you are.

You can see the peppers on the wings so there is no doubt about what’s coming. The meat is very tender. I could taste a little of the jerk seasoning on the chicken itself. Though I really like spicy foods, I think I will go easy on these.

The festival was very small. You only get one piece. It was slightly sweet, a tiny bit sweeter than most. After a while I kinda liked the sweetness. Really helps put out the flames from the wings. I just wish there was more of it. Maybe two pieces or one larger piece.

The mixed steamed vegetables were cooked cabbage, greens, with a couple of chunks of what looks like red and green bell peppers. Nicely seasoned. Not sure what kind of broth the vegetables were cooked in but it lends a very nice flavor. Once I dug into them, I ate almost all of them right away.

You get two slices of fried plantain. I am not a big fan of plantains to begin with. And I was not really feeling these. They had kind of a mushier consistency than other plantains I’ve tried. But I ate them anyway.

The rice and peas were a little dry. It took a few forkfuls to really taste the flavor of the rice. It could use a splash of coconut milk. After several more forkfuls, the flavor grew on me but I still think coconut milk would help. Nothing really special about the peas.

The lunch size short ribs come with two ribs. They were fall-off-the-bone tender. Because short ribs have a distinct, strong flavor, it was a little hard to ‘read’ the meat. I couldn’t tell if it was marinated or seasoned before cooking due to the jerk sauce. My palate tasted short ribs, then sauce. The two flavors didn’t really compliment each other. They didn’t clash; it was just that the flavors didn’t work together. More like they were separate flavors.

For my jerk chicken, I got a leg and a thigh. Somewhere along the line I bit into a piece of meat from near the bone without sauce. It tasted naked. The chicken must have been cooked to near done, then finished in a sauce. The jerk sauce heat level ranged from medium to hot depending on how much sauce was on each piece. You can see all of the spices, which is good. It was the right color and flavor, too. The taste reminded me of the meats served in jerk centres in Ocho Rios.

Yes, that was a lot of food. I ate well for the next couple of days.

If you want to try your hand at cooking some jerk meats at home, Front Page sells its own jerk seasoning and reggae hot sauce by the bottle.

Front Page is the real deal. Just ask the regulars that stop by. Ask them how often they dine or take out from here. If you decide to dine in, solo diners, couples, or smaller groups of four or less work best.

Front Page Jamaican Grille – 4 forks. Recommended. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Catering? Yah, mon. They do that, too.

 

The Crab Pit

April 28, 2010

Inglewood, California – Here’s yet another place that’s been on my ‘must try’ list for several years. I’ve passed by it dozens of times and even been invited to this eatery for lunch. But I just never made it by – until today.

The restaurant fronts a tiny, and I do mean tiny strip mall. Parking is very limited. Stalls are shoehorned into a tight area and that includes negotiating a 90-degreee left turn inside the lot. Ok, now that you’re parked, let’s go inside.

You can enter from either the back entrance accessible from the parking lot, or from the front. If you come in through the front, you’ll notice a dining area on the patio with five concrete tables sitting on steel posts. Open the door and it looks like you’ve stepped into a different town. The eatery has a Southern vibe and fits in perfectly with the funk of the neighborhood.

Inside, enjoy the figurines, crab, and other objects d’art. Hanging from the ceiling you’ll find several signs touting TCP’s fare. Look for the pirate flag and the “Crab Crossing” signs. On the west wall hang the requisite autographed celebrity photographs. If you get there at the right time, you’ll find a table with jewelry for sale. There are two old analog televisions on opposing walls.

Make your way on back to the counter and place your order. The lady behind the counter was very friendly and explained some of the items offered on the menu. If it is not crowded, you can dine at one of the four tables inside. And if you do choose to dine in, you’ll be served your meal in boat-shaped dishes. (I got mine to go so I didn’t get to experience that part.)

One thing I like about going to restaurants at off hours is being able to speak to the owners and servers. Today we talked about the different types of crab they had available. They serve gumbo, too. I’ve come to love king crab. As you know, this species is very expensive so I have to be selective about when and where I order it. (A tip of the hat to the people up in Alaska who risk their lives to catch it for us.) What sealed the deal for me this time was the fact that TCP offers theirs barbecued. My server pointed out that barbecued, here at TCP, meant barbecue seasoning, not that it was cooked over a pit. (Ok, I’ll give you that one; the word ‘pit’ is in the name, but it’s a different kind of pit.) It is “done our way,” my server told me.

Today my order consisted of the aforementioned bbq king crab (are you drooling yet? I am). For sides, garlic bread and garlic herb rice. Rounding out my order today was a Killer Shrimp Taco, and a La Faja Honey Punch. I had never heard of this beverage but it sounded interesting. My server said it was good. Might be worth trying, so I ordered it.

It takes a little while to prepare your order so a dose of patience is required. Have a seat and visit with friends or watch the TV while you wait. If you’re going to be ordering to go, call ahead. While I waited, I browsed through the jewelry that was on the table and then watched a little TV. When my order came up, I thanked my server and headed off on my way.

When I arrived home, I couldn’t wait to dig in. Hold on; let me back up a bit. I ate the shrimp taco in the car right there in the parking lot. It never made it home; it never had a chance. It just smelled too good. The shell was a corn tortilla fried into a taco shell. Because it was fried, it was also greasy. No biggie. A couple of napkins took care of that problem. Plenty of shrimp inside the taco. The shrimp, too, was fried. But TCP didn’t ‘overfry’ the shrimp; it still kept its shrimp flavor. That flavor did get buried in the greasiness of the shell, though. On top you have lettuce, two types of grated cheese, chunks of tomato, green onion, and olives. The toppings also pummeled the shrimp taste. TCP gives you a packet of taco sauce but I didn’t use it. What I really wanted was some hot sauce. But since I had already left the eatery and was well into the taco, I just kept on eating. The whole thing was a bit salty and even though the taste of the shrimp got lost in the rest of the taco, it was still pretty darn good. In fact, after I polished it off, I regretted that I hadn’t ordered two of them.

Everything else was packed well, as you can see from the photo. Once I finally got everything unwrapped, I dug in. The French bread was toasted with garlic butter and I think a bit of parsley. It tasted buttery and salty. Yep, salty bread. A bit too salty for my taste. Did TCP use garlic salt on the bread? The rice, as you can see, was topped with herbs. Which infiltrated the taste of the rice. This would have been a good thing had the herbs not tasted old, as in not fresh. It tasted almost as if they had been sitting in a jar on a shelf somewhere for a long time. They had long since lost their savor and really negatively affected the taste of the rice. I had already mixed the herbs in so there was no way to separate them now. The corn was nicely buttered but was overcooked. Good, but still overcooked. Not much else to say about it.

For the main event I decided to take the shell off the legs first and then reward myself later with a plate full of shell-less meat. Forget about instant gratification because you’re gonna be working on these legs for a while. Anticipation will build but enjoying the fruits of your labor afterward will be worth it. TCP didn’t try to cheat on the portions; almost half a crab minus the body. The crab was cooked well so the shell was softened, making it easy to crack and remove the succulent meat inside. Be careful with the spines.

Now I’ve got all the prized meat out of the shell. The butter has been waiting patiently on the side for me to start dipping. But first, a taste of the crab. The bbq seasoning comes through immediately. The only thing that detracted from the taste was the very present ‘fishy’ flavor. A squeeze of lemon and a dip into the butter helped cut the taste of the ocean in my crab. Then it reminded me of a good old-fashioned crab boil. Working with the crab was a very messy affair but then again, aren’t most crab boils? The crab was thoroughly seasoned. You can taste the seasoning in every bite. I was really enjoying this part of the meal. The fact that there was a lot of crab made it even better.

To wash it down, I opened the honey punch. I really didn’t know what to expect here. The bottle says it contains apple, orange, lemon, strawberry, and pineapple juices, plus honey. I was thinking it would be some sort of health drink. I took a sip. It had the consistency of a smoothie. The different fruit juices mixed in the drink flashed across my taste buds too quickly to identify individually. Through the various fruit juices should’ve been ticketed for speeding in my mouth, fruit juice is definitely in the house. After swallowing, the honey flavor was last to cross my palate. And it lingered for a while. Not sweet at all but a definite honey flavor. I think I like this!

The Crab Pit has a selection of desserts but I didn’t even look into those. Maybe next time. Next time, though, I will have to try those Killer Turkey Tacos I keep hearing so much about. The way things have been going, it’ll probably be a spur-of-the-moment trip but I will be looking forward to it. Stop by if you’re in the area and are up for a different take on crab and shrimp.

The Crab Pit – 3 forks. Recommended. Note that they close kinda early; 6:30pm on weeknights. More photos of The Crab Pit can be found on LA Taco’s review.

Update: Sadly, The Crab Pit closed down not too long after this review was originally posted.