Tasty Island's Jamaican-born chef/owner, Owen Chamberlain, had me dead to rights. I had asked him what was in his jerk-beef sub, and he shot back the answer—"beef"—while looking me directly in the eye.
But then he broke into a broad smile, so his answer was okay with me, though my sub had lots of other things in it, tomatoes, onions and pickles, not to mention the addictive jerk spices, which include ginger and garlic. In the seven years I've been living here, I have searched high and low for Jamaican food, but always come up short. At long last, the search is over.
Tasty Island, a small storefront at Rainbow and Flamingo, has in fact been open nearly a year, but I didn't know about it until a Jamaican overheard me say I missed his cuisine.
"Sure, we have a Jamaican restaurant, mon. It's called Tasty Eyeeeee-land," he said, relishing the syllables that rolled off his tongue like goat curry. Later, I found out Chamberlain had formerly owned Lee's Caribbean Kitchen in Inglewood, California, near the LA airport. I ate there once, and as I recall, it was okay, too, mon.
But his latest restaurant is a keeper. True, it's not much to look at, mostly a conglomeration of black-topped Formica tables and straight-up chairs, shelves stocked with a plethora of condiments you'd eat in Kingston or Montego Bay, and a counter to order from.
While I looked over the menu, I pondered Marie Sharp's Beware, a devilish-looking yellow habañero chile sauce, and Eaton's West Indian Hot Mustard, both de rigueur in Jamaican homes, and beverages such as Old Fashioned Ginger Beer, which makes American Ginger Ale an insipid competitor, and Irish Moss, a peanut-flavored drink in a can.
Eventually, I ordered red bean soup, served in an extra-large Styrofoam coffee cup; a Jamaican pattie, a flat pastry filled with a soupy, liquefied beef that sears the roof of your mouth; and, finally, goat curry, a ginger-and-onion-flavored concoction starring shards of gelatinous meat that slide off the bone as if propelled. And, yes, the meal was amazing.
Chamberlain doesn't make the patties, beef or chicken, that sit in a hot case by the cash register, but everything else here is made from scratch. A pattie, for the record, looks rather like a Pop Tart. It has a pale yellow color from the use of annatto, a seed used often in Mexican cuisine. A pattie crust is flaky and rich, so watch out. One bite and you can get hooked.
I'm hooked on brown stew fish, a red snapper pan-fried whole and served on the bone on top of a mound of rice and beans. The fish is smothered in onions, carrots and a tasty brown sauce, and, at $14, is the most expensive thing on Tasty Island's menu.
The other entrées can be ordered small or large, and the portions are huge. His oxtails are the biggest seller on his menu; then comes jerk chicken, plump pieces in a spicy brown sauce that you can sop up with fried-bread dumplings. All entrées are served with a choice of steamed rice or rice and peas, plus a cabbagey pile of steamed vegetables and slices of fried plantains. When available, Tasty Island will also serve you yams or the spicy cornbread called festival with your entrées. They eat hearty in Jamaica.
Actually, everything comes in Styrofoam containers here, so let's get back to that bean soup. It's hands down the best in the city, smoky, meaty and stocked with marrow bones and flour dumplings that look as if they had been dropped in from China. There are also really Jamaican dishes on this menu, like akee and saltfish, callaloo, and escovitched fish. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't try them all.
Akee is a curiosity. It's a fleshy seed-covering that grows on a tree, toxic when eaten raw but creamy, custardy and delicious when cooked. Saltfish, its foil, is unbearable for anyone who dislikes fishy fish, tiny chunks of powerfully salty fish that turns akee into a funky and interestingly balanced food. Callaloo, a spinach relative, also goes nicely with saltfish, but it's tasty on its own, on rice.
Escovitched fish is fish cooked in a vinegar, tomato and onion sauce, given extra bite by Scotch bonnet peppers, the peppers that put Jamaica on the foodie map. The name is a corruption of a Spanish word escabeche, if you're interested. If you aren't, a nice curry chicken is also available.
For dessert, don't miss the dense, dark, molasses-moist, homemade rum cake. For those along for the ride, the kitchen prepares a variety of American-style subs. Man—I mean mon—cannot live by jerk alone.