Jamaica Tours, Guides and Vacations

I love Jamaican food and we try to eat at a variety of places. I do however find myself eating at many of the same places sometimes and I have to force myself to try new places every once in awhile. This was not one of those times, I’ve been eating at Sweet Spice for a long time but I never took any pictures of my meals to share.

Our last trip there was a surprise visit and I was not planning on eating out that day. We passed Sweet Spice on our way home from Sav La Mar and I got a craving for a brown stew chicken with rice and peas for dinner. We pulled in and I placed my order and to my surprise my wife ordered an Oxtail dinner instead of her usual curry chicken.

I have eaten at many of the restaurants in Negril and sampled the curry chicken at most of them. Jamaicans love to eat chicken with the bone in and it’s not many places that make a boneless curry meal but Sweet Spice in Negril has what you’re looking for if you want meat and no bones on your plate.

I have had oxtail may times before. It was the Thursday special of the day at El Siboney Restaurant in Key West Florida where I ate lunch for years. The Oxtail I have had was prepared cuban style with black beans and rice and a nice tomato based sauce. The oxtail at Sweet Spice was done a little different but still very good. oxtail is a dark greasy meat with tender meat chunks on the tailbone. The tailbone has a jelly like cartilage that some dislike but it’s pretty good to me.

The Brown Stew Chicken at Sweet Spice is very good also as are all my meals at this great jamaican restaurant. Stop by Sweet Spice on the road to Sheffield near the Texaco station for some good jamaican food without the bones if you wish.

Jamaicans love their patty shops and Juici Patty is an islandwide favorite serving fresh hot Jamaican patty and coco bread meals to like half the country each and every day. I have seen the lines in a patty shop fill the entire store from 11am until 2pm each afternoon as Jamaicans file through in semi orderly fashion and place orders for a patty and a coke or boxed orange juice for lunch.

Patty shops usually offer spicy beef patties as their main choice but they also offer beef and cheese patties or curry chicken patties as well. Beef and chicken are the most popular patty but many shops also offer lobster, shrimp and soy patties as well.

Some patty shops offer more than just patties and Juici Beef is one of those. You can find a great selection of breakfast items including green banana porridge or maybe a peanut porridge either of which goes well with a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee or an Orange Juice. Juici Patty also offers fried chicken and sometimes a soup of the day if things are busy.

If you travel to Jamaica and want to experience real Jamaican food then you have to stop in a patty shop and try a Jamaican patty or you’ll be missing out on the most popular meal in the country. Ackee and saltfish may be the official food of Jamaica but the patty man feeds the country.