Likkle Likkle Jamaica

I get my best post ideas when I'm not in front of the computer. The problem is, I usually have nowhere to write them down (either that or I'm driving and its not advisable to lean over the passenger's seat to take a pen and pad out your purse while going 100 km/h right alongside a container truck). But I actually remembered one today. And it's about food (oh boy!)

Likkle Likkle Jamaica

A friend told me about it a couple weeks ago. Located just opposite Long Circular Mall (I am NOT good with street names) this place is new. I was excited about eating escovitch fish again so I'd dragged my mom and sis away from the mall food court. It looks new: nice wood floors with not enough furniture. Bad sign: when we walked in, no one else was there. Still, I bravely went up to the counter (sparsely populated). The lady behind the counter was typically Jamaican: bold, brash, aggressively selling. A little desperate, really. Hmmm. We finally decided on the fish for me, curried goat for Mom and Baby Sis and potato salad and festivals all round.

Small lunches came up to $25 or $35 so it was reasonably priced. But I was disappointed by their rendering of the fish. The beauty of escovitch is not in the preparation. It IS normal fried fish, after all. The onions, scotch bonnet pepper and other seasoning veggies pickled in hot vinegar that you liberally dash over the fried fish - THAT'S what makes escovitch fish sing. Unfortunately, they were really stingy with the pickled stuff and I couldn't taste that familiar vinegary snap while eating the fish. SO basically it was fried fish with stewed fish sauce on it. Hmmm.

The food was also cold, including the festival, which really tastes best hot and freshly prepared. The whole place felt stale, somehow, despite the bright red, green and gold paint and Berris Hammond on the radio. Some Jamaican men came in a bit later and sat calmly eating their rice and peas, and the curried goat had a nice flavour. But unless they tap into the tastes of Trinis (we like it hot, we like it fresh and we love when it has pepper) I predict that Likkle Likkle Jamaica will close in about six months. Probably less.