Small Bites: Goat curry highlights Caribbean Delight’s Jamaican fare – STLtoday.com

The headline for last week's main review described El Toluco Taqueria & Grocery as bare-bones. I should have saved the adjective for today's Small Bites. Caribbean Delight, which opened in September by the intersection of Gravois Avenue and South Grand Boulevard, is as skeletal a restaurant as you'll find in town. Its single room features an ordering window at the far end, a few tables around the perimeter and a big empty space in the middle.

You'll probably get your food to go your food is served in a to-go container regardless (hence the photographs included here) but get it you should.

At Caribbean Delight, owner and chef Chrisanna Little is serving traditional dishes from her native Jamaica. As she told me during a phone interview, these are the recipes that have been passed down to her.

This is basically how they're cooked, she said.

There is jerk chicken, of course, grilled outside the restaurant, chopped into pieces and served over rice. The char-kissed chicken is appropriately spicy, but the real heat comes from the gravy ladled over the rice.

An order of goat curry from Caribbean Delight. Photo: Ian Froeb

Many of the other dishes on Caribbean Delight's menu Little stews and stews and stews. They cook for a really, really long time, she told me.

These include oxtails, their abundant meat not quite falling off the bone but yielding easily to your plastic to-go fork. A definite, but not searing heat tinges the rich beef flavor. A clear standout is the goat curry, the tender meat's strong natural flavor sharply accented by chiles but also enrobed by more complex, warming curry spices.

Your order should probably include a traditional Jamaican beef patty, an empanada-esque hand pie (though the patty's shell is larger and softer) with spicy minced beef.

An important caveat: Caribbean Delight is cash-only.

Not a caveat, though maybe an invitation: Every other weekend, Little said, Caribbean Delight stays open later than usual and plays music. That big empty space in the middle of the room might come in handy then.

Where Caribbean Delight, 3526 Gravois Avenue More Info 314-799-1463 Menu Traditional Jamaican fare Hours Lunch and dinner daily

A weekly treasure trove of tastiness, featuring reviews from restaurant critic Ian Froeb and how-to videos by food writer Dan Neman.

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Small Bites: Goat curry highlights Caribbean Delight's Jamaican fare - STLtoday.com