Jamaica'n me hungry

i'm back from a nice sunny trip to Jamaica with J, and we definitely ate our hearts out while we were there - how can you not when it's an all-inclusive resort? (: the place we stayed at gave the option to either eat the the standard buffet, a few grills, and some formal restaurants for dinner, and we managed to sample every single place. for this post, i'm going to stick with the Jamaican dishes.

at the South Beach Grill, we enjoyed a nice 3-course meal right on (can you guess?) the south beach!

like the view? i'm sure you're jealous!


we started off with some nice and warm pumpkin bread. it was delicious!

you can't really taste the pumpkin, but you can definitely see how it affected the texture of the bread..it was so soft and sweet, but in a non-artificial way, if that makes sense.

for my starter, i had the jerked spring rolls with papaya and mango puree.

i thought the sauce was a little too mild - there were hints of mango, but the flavour wasn't as strong as i had hoped. the spring rolls themselves were crispy and filled with spices!

i also had the pumpkin soup...yum!

it had doughy, pillowy balls inside. it sort of reminded me of gnocchi, but not completely (it was a little chewier than that). the soup itself was really sweet and perhaps a bit watered down, but still good!

i wasn't too impressed with the entree - it was grilled fish with a light coconut sauce, with rice & peas on the side, along with veg au gratin and 2 slices of fried plantains.

maybe because i had been eating grilled fish for the entire week, but it just didn't seem that much better than what i had at the buffets. i think my favourite part was still the plantains hahaha. i can't seem to get sick of them! the rice & peas are also amazing (btw, peas in Jamaica seem to just be kidney beans...i have no idea why they're called peas).

finally, for dessert, i had the creme brulee, which was delicious - except it wasn't creme brulee.

it was more of a thick custard..picture egg tarts that you get at dimsum, only with a chewier consistency. i didn't complain, though, because it was so delicious! it was all melon-flavoured and summery...perfect for the beach.

as i mentioned before, i tried a lot of typical Jamaican dishes at the grills and buffet. for example, on the first night my plate was filled with salad, pasta, a Jamaican roll, and - JERK CHICKEN (:

they also had a lot of fruit available during each meal. note the purple thing - it's called a star apple! kind of slimy in texture, but so sweet and oh so good.

what's vacation w/o a few piña coladas?

photo credit: J.L. 

see that orange sauce? it's scotch bonnet hot sauce. and it's the best thing in the whole world. the green veg on the bottom left is called callaloo, and it's super delicious with rice!! (also note the fried plantains on my plate hehehehe)

needless to say it was a very fun (and food-filled) week. i am pretty sure i'll need a plantain fix in a few weeks hehe!