I’ve wanted to go to Calabash Bistro for dinner ever since I went on the Vancouver Food Tour Craft Cocktail Tour back in August. It seemed like a really cool place to have a nice Caribbean meal. It’s a really cool place, to hangout with a live band sometimes downstairs on some nights. I went there one night and it turns out the basement turns into a sort of club too. Last week I finally got to go for the food.

Me and a friend got there early, so we started snacking. We ordered one of each of the patties – Chicken, Beef, and Vegetable – for $3 each, and also some roti. This is my first time having patties, and the filling was pretty similar to the samosa, but I thought the dough was a lot flakier. It was really good, with many different spices used. There was a bit of heat there too. All though we got one of each patty, it was kind of hard to tell the difference between each of the patties because they all basically had the same ingredients inside, potatoes and some peas. The meat inside was ground, so it was kind of overpowered by all the spices. When I saw the prices, I was like $3 isn’t that much for a patty, but in retrospect, you can usually get 2-3 samosas for a dollar at some places.  The roti was pretty good, but I wished the dip had a bit more flavour to it. It was too mild for my liking.

When the rest of our friends got there, we ordered a jerk poutine to start. For our mains, I got the Oxtail, while my friends got the Ackee and Saltfish, the Jerkboard (which was Catfish that day), Curry Chicken, and another Oxtail. The poutine wasn’t very special. It was served in a bowl with some gravy, brie cheese, green onions and some jerk seasoning on the fries. The gravy sank immediately to the bottom, and none of the top fries had much gravy. We actually questioned if there was any gravy at all. Overall it was a bit disappointing.

The oxtail was really good. It came in 3 metal bowls that were stacked on top of each other. One was the oxtail, the other was rice, and the last one was a spinach salad. The oxtail was stewed and had excellent flavour, with the perfect amount of spiciness. Just enough so I can taste and feel it, but not leaving me wanting to drink a ton of water. It was mixed with potatoes and some other root vegetables. I wished there was more oxtail though, I couldn’t get enough of it. Nice amount of fat in it, and very tender. The seasoned rice came with this ball of fried dense dough that was very good also. I haven’t had anything like it, and the flavour was very unique. I think it was a bit sweet, and a bit of curry flavour, but it was absolutely delicious. The salad was a pretty standard salad with a nice sweet vinaigrette.

The kitchen did mess up the orders a bit, so the two that ordered the fish got there’s quite a bit after the rest of ours got our food. The Curry Chicken was wrapped in a roti and was just OK. She actually wanted half rice, half roti, but they can’t do that. My friends were really happy with their fish dishes though. The flavours from the spices were very good. Depending on your palette you will find it a bit spicy to just moderately spicy. I don’t think anything was overkill for us. Cool place to hang out in Gastown. We’ll definitely go back. Thanks for bringing me to Calabash Mel.

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Calabash Bistro
428 Carrall Street
Vancouver, BC

(604) 568-5882

www.calabashbistro.com

The Lion’s Den Cafe has been in business for 10 years, but I only heard of it recently from other food bloggers. A Caribbean cafe with a preserved lion that also serves Okonomiyaki? I am definitely intrigued.

We stopped by the cafe for lunch. From the menu, you will learn the word “Japaribbean”. It means the fusion Japanese and Caribbean food, and therefore explains the existence of Okonomiyaki. The day I went, their daily special was Soul Food. They had cat fish, fried chicken and Jambalaya. I was more in a mood for curry, so I ordered the Curry Goat off the regular menu. My friend ordered the Jerk Chicken, also off the regular menu. I was really hungry that day, before my food arrived my table, I decided to also ordered the Jambalaya to share with my friend.

Food here looks really home made. My Curry Goat came with rice, and corn bread. The Curry Goat looked like there would be a lot of flavor, but it was actually pretty bland. There’s just wasn’t a lot of spices going on. I asked for spicy, but it wasn’t spicy at all. I’ve never had goat before, the meat was pretty tender, but there was more bones than I expected. I couldn’t really taste any goat flavor either. It also felt like the curry was microwaved, because some parts were really hot, and some parts were just lukewarm.

The Jerk Chicken on the other hand, had more flavors going on. It came with 3 chicken drum sticks. The meat was really tender, not dry. It was spicy, but the kind of spicy that builds up slowly. It was delicious.

We ordered the Jambalaya with sausage and shrimp. The Jambalaya here looked different that I am used to. It was probably because it was just sauce on top of rice, instead of everything mixed in together. The sauce was less stewy, it was rather more clear. It was tomatoey, and unlike the Jerk Chicken, you can taste the spiciness right away. And again, more flavorful than the Curry Goat. It was pretty good, but the shrimps didn’t have much flavor.

All 3 dishes came with a side of corn bread, which I liked a lot.

The restaurant had a great relaxing/hipster vibe. The owner had a great attitude, and was super friendly. He goes around to chat with everyone in the restaurant. He could tell if you are a first timer. And if you’re a first timer, he’ll tell you the story of The Lion’s Den Cafe, and will ask you to sign his guest book that he’s had since day one of his restaurant.

The food itself was OK, but the friendliness of the staff definitely added some bonus points to the dinning experience.

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The Lion’s Den Cafe
651 E 15th Ave
Vancouver, BC V5T
(604) 873-4555
www.lionsdencafe.oxyfx.com

I don’t think I’ve ever had real Caribbean food, I think the closest I had anything Caribbean was Jamaican jerk chicken wings at regular pubs. So, when I finally got to visit The Reef, I was pretty excited.

Dining at The Reef was super causal. Because I wasn’t familiar with Caribbean food, it took me a while to decided what I wanted. In the end, my friend and I decided to share Plantain Chips ($6), The Jamaican Jerk ($14), and The Big Ting ($20) of July’s featured dishes.

The Plantain Chips were really yummy. They were my favorite of the meal. The chips weren’t greasy, and they were crispy. I really liked the jerk mayo it came with, it was a perfect dipping sauce for the chips. I did find the seasoning of the chips were uneven. Some of the chips I got were really salty, because they had a ton of seasoning on them, and some of them didn’t get much seasoning at all.

For The Jamaican Jerk, you have the choice of chicken, pork, salmon or tofu. We picked chicken and it came with rice, coleslaw and vegetables. This dish was only OK. The chicken was overcooked, and it was pretty dry since most of it was chicken breast. The sauce was great, but really, I just couldn’t get over the overcooked chicken.

The Big Ting of July’s feature was marlin with rice and vegetables. The marlin was topped with this  vinegary and spicy sauce with onions. It was a really nice sauce, and it was spicy. The fish itself was again, overcooked. It was pretty dry, and it has lost of bit of its taste, maybe it was over powered by the sauce. I was pretty disappointed with this dish, and it was definitely not worth $20 dollars.

The ambiance was really laid back, but they were having a bit of volume control on their music that night. It’d get really loud from time to time. I’m not sure if it was authentic Caribbean food, but I’m pretty sure it’ll take me a while before I return again.

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The Reef
4172 Main St
Vancouver, BC V5V
www.threefrestaurant.com