By Rosemary Parkinson, Freelance Writer 
AS CIRCUMSTANCES would have it I am once more in Barbados. I opened the local newspaper The Nation on December 31 to discover that columnist Irene Sandiford-Garner had read my December 23 Gleaner review proclaiming the surliness of the service industry here. She agreed with me.
Having written the piece, I thought I would've become persona non grata because Bajans don't take kindly to those who point at 'God's island'. I want to make it clear that I absolutely adore all my Caribbean islands, including the gem called Barbados. However, I am just mortified at the rudeness of some of our people - people who should be glad to even have a job. For the sake of all our islands that appear to be developing a new virus called 'mi-want-job-but-me-nah-like-to-work', I pray that some sort of vaccination/antidote will be discovered or soon we will be deemed the last places on earth to visit.
Today I am going to delve into three different kinds of 'Caribbean' foods served up in Barbados. First, a Sunday Bajan buffet at the newly opened Sugar Reef Restaurant which is slam bam on one of the most beautiful and highly regarded beaches known locally as Accra Beach or Rockley. The restaurant is simply but beautifully decorated in colours of blue - as blue as the amazing sea that laps onto its adjoining silver sands where casuarinas giving shade to picnickers sway to those easterly breezes that Barbados is so famous for.
PICKINGS WERE SMALL
Two waiters, Junior and Tyronne, certainly proved that owners of restaurants can get their staff to smile and be gracious. The pickings were small in comparison to what I remember as a good Bajan buffet. Maybe I have too many memories of the now defunct St. Lawrence Hotel run by Peter Morgan so many aeons ago. That was when a Bajan buffet was a buffet for royalty.
The Eddoe Soup (a tuber with a slimy-type flesh that I absolutely adore - coco in Jamaica?) could have had a little more eddoe to make it traditional but it was okay. The overcooked flying fish lacked the usual Bajan seasoning that makes this fish so famous. The stew beef and baked chicken were great. The sweet potato pie, absolutely delightful. However, there was not a sign of jerk in the jerk pork. I suggest the owners use some Walkerswood Jerk Seasoning and perhaps even purchase the recipe book in order to get it right. The peas and rice - not like Jamaican rice and peas - made with pigeon peas (known as gungo peas in the land of Jah) was deliciously Bajan.
Desserts at Sugar Reef consisted of a fruit salad, an apple pie crumble and banana bread - all excellent. The price? US$20 each. For Barbados standards not bad and, to be honest, with a little more oomph to the buffet and possibly a tad more seasoning, this restaurant could become a favourite. There is dining at night and the menu did look inviting. So if you're in Barbados, a visit here is worth it.
Across the road from Accra Beach is the Blue Horizon Hotel and within a restaurant called 'Jus' Jerk' - the sign says it offers Real Jamaican Jerk, traditional even (a map of Jamaica ensuring there was no mistake).
The menu claims to offer Jamaican dishes such as Jus Jerk Wings, Fish Fritters Montego, Uncle Sooky's Jerk Pork, Mama's Jamdown Curried Goat. among others.
I chose jerk chicken described as chicken marinated in an authentic Jamaican Jerk Seasoning and Jerked the Jamaican way, and the braised oxtail cooked to perfection in a tasty sauce with broad beans. Rice and peas and salad were the accompaniments.
NOTHING JERK
I have one thing to say to the Jamaican (so I was told) chef who was at the helm: You must be Jamaican by flying over the island only, my friend. Not even the worst jerk stand or the worst cookshop in the island of Jamaica could have produced what I purchased. There was absolutely nothing jerk about that overcooked and burned on the outside chicken, nor its sauce. Same for the oxtail. Braised it was, tasty it was, the three broad beans within were also good but 'twas not Jah Oxtail! Sorry.
As for the rice and peas, it was undoubtedly awful and definitely not from Jamaica. I paid US$25 for these two dishes served in take-away containers. Another case of Walkerswood/Busha Browne needing to come to the rescue. Someone send this chef a Jamaican cookbook - do.
YUMMY TRINI DOUBLES
Had a great Trini roti at Indian Grill on Bay Street duly filled to the brim with delicious shrimp. Then there was my favourite of favourites - outside the post office next door to Big B Supermarket on Rendezvous Road - a stand selling Trini Doubles. By the way, a double is a small roti bake that has been fried and then filled with curried chick peas, dabbed with Trini pepper, chadon benny (wild coriander) sauce and a cucumber pickle, wrapped in clear paper for serving. One of its best attributes is trying to eat it without making a total mess of yourself. For US$1 each, a couple of these serve to fill those corners of an empty belly for little or nothing. It's not a doubles from outside Brooklyn Bar in Port of Spain, the Trinidadian capital, but it's a good copy.
I had lunch at Harriet's at Cheapside Market in the city served with a welcoming smile and one hell of a pork chop with the correct amount of fat right alongside the meat, a gravy to die for, two scoops of yam coucou (mashed yam), one scoop of coucou (corn meal with ochra) and a salad - for all of US$5. So guess who is still in my good books when it comes to eating great Bajan nosh?
Oh, and by the way, the Sunday buffet at The Cove on the most enthralling side of the island, Cattlewash, is a must and continues to be great value for money with all manner of Bajan and Trini fare. The sight of the seas that join Africa to this little island and roll in with amazing force bringing with it the most delicious of winds filled with clean and invigorating ozone is alone worth the price of US$30. Try the pepperpot - a Guyanese dish adopted through some other islands made of meats cured in Casareep (the poison of which Indians used to kill their prey). Amazing stuff.
Last, but not least, I dropped in to see old friends at Tiny's Pink Star Bar & Restaurant on Baxter's Road for some finger-licking good chicken in the wee hours of one weekday morning. Some things just never change.
Barbados is now in the throes of its Jazz Festival so there's time to book and come on over for the weekend. The Farley Hill Sunday of Jazz is a positive must.
Rosemary Parkinson is
frazzled and needs to return to the peace and quiet of Jamaica.
