Ackee and Salted Fish Breakfast, Jamaica May 18th, 2013

Its Saturday morning and we slept in! I’ve stopped taking Reactine since I’ve left my hayfever behind in Toronto.

a typical Jamaican breakast:

Jamaican breakfast

 

We decided to go out for breakfast at Fish Spot to order ackee and salted fish for breakfast. Ackee looks like scrambled eggs, onions and the salted fish. Its a very salty dish and the restaurant ran out of dumplings so we substituted festival instead. Festival is a fried donut with cornmeal and sugar and its really tasty. I enjoyed the festival more than the salted fish. I think if it was a smaller ratio of fish to ackee I may order it again.

from the fruit vendor

David wanted to buy more bananas from his favourite fruit vendor which is in a parking lot at strip mall. We could smell pineapples when you got of the car. He said that I could pick anything. I choose some fingerling bananas, some cherries, 2 large Alfonso type mangoes, 1 rose apple, 1 pear that looked like an avocado and a small pineapple. I only wanted a handful of the cherries but the vendor insisted that he top off the bag to half a pound. Some of the fruit was an experiment. The cherries turned to have a ridged pit and were rather sour, bad experiment. I guess that what they make the local cherry drink out of. The pineapple was fine, small and the crown was crooked, probably locally grown.  And what I thought was a guava is a neice?? berry.

Since food is rather cheap here, and the kitchen isn’t air conditioned and fully equipped, we are eating out a lot more. Since I spend a lot of time cooking at home, it is offset by the time going to the restaurant, ordering and driving back. There is no dishwasher here either. Howeve r, it seems to be either fish or chicken entrees that I’m picking. Cuz I’m a wimp for spices.

Tastee

For lunch, we droved to Tastee. David ordered curried mutton and I ordered stewed beef and a beef patty. I found the stewed beef too spicy so I preferred his curried mutton. The mutton wasn’t strongly curried. I am getting fond of rice and peas. The peas are not green but pigeon peas. I liked the beef patty, somewhat sweet and a slow burn and of course flaky pastry.

Dinner from Island Grill, which is a big chain known for their jerk dishes. I ordered fish in brown sauce again.  But the plantains are in the back.  They were soft and delicious.  I’ve tried cooking then at home but I guess they aren’t ripe enough to be this delicious.

island grill, plantain

Every day, I look for the herd of 6 goats again but haven’t seen them since. We had the landlord Mike drop by so I asked him about the goats. He said that you are allowed to keep livestock in your back yard if your neighbours don’t complain. Mike said that on his home farm, the goats over 100, go out in the morning, range for miles, come home when they are full and find their way back by themselves.

We are renting an apartment. The building is brand new, 1 bedroom, has stacking washer/dryer but the air conditioner is only in the bedroom. We open the bedroom door so that cold air flows through. There is gated parking coming it. I haven’t checked out the gym on the top floor yet. From the balcony, I can see the coast. Rain showers off and on.

highlights recap: ackee and salted fish, too salty. Beware of ridged cherries, they are sour cherries.


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