Jamaica is amazing: Food and drink (Jamaica)

Member Name: VLB-23

Product:	Jamaica
Date:	20/08/08 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: food is fresh and cheap

Disadvantages: might not like it all?

I have recently just come back from my amazing 3 week holiday in Jamaica and can honestly say it was absolutely incredible. I am already saving for the next holiday now. As my parents are from Jamaica, I have a lot of family over there so stayed with my grandparents in Mandeville for most of the time which was great as it's situated in the hills, it's a lovely part of the island.
Anyhow, as i am Jamaican, i have the priviledge of trying much jamaican food, and i managed to taste food all round the island as we travelled to Kingston staying at Strawberry Hill in the Blue mountains (must say it was amazing, breath taking views etc.) We also stayed for quite a few nights in Negril and we also went to Clarendon and White House.

The first dish that i sampled whilst in Jamaica was KFC!! yes i know, go all the way to Jamaica and eat KFC, but it is a lot better than the UK and USA obviously as it is the home of fried chicken, it is less greasy, and compared to the UK has lots more options such as BBQ, hot and spicy and also comes with scone/dumplin like cakes called festival or biscuit.

After that was a lot of home cooked food, like callaloo, ackee and saltfish, yams, green banana, plantins, dumplin fired and boiled, different types of fish, rotie, curries, rice and peas and obviously lots of chicken! If you have any questions about these foods and how they taste, message me or comment.

Sandals is a great place to go, however, if you're not in a couple don't bother because it will just make you feel sick with all the loved up couples and it isn't that lively! However, we had breakfast and lunch there and the food was delicious, it was an all inclusive so it was all included in the price which is great. However, if seeing couples names written in the sand is not your thing then definitely go to either beaches or riu or another resort! Although if you're in anywhere like montego bay or negril or ochi rios then i wouldn't recommend staying all inclusive as you miss out on all the local food and entertainment and Jamaican culture! It's so easy to use local taxi's to get places as they're so cheap, and it is safe around the tourist areas no matter what they say!

So then after the first week, we went off to Negril, here we stayed at travellers beach resort, and honestly we were not pleased with the level of the presentation of our rooms! So we complained and they upgraded us with no problem to their superior suites. So although i probably wouldn't stay there again unless staying in those rooms, i do highly commend the staff as they are lovely and a really big help. However, the food at the hotel was not all that great, and apart from a fish dish that my dad had, none of us really enjoyed our food or drinks too much!

Therefore, for the remaining nights we ate out. We ate at Kuyaba
which is a restaurant that is highly recommended in all the brochures. We ate the peppered shrimp dish (not called exactly that) which was delicious! I also recommend the boiled lobster, jerk chicken (however only if you like spicy foods) the steak.

The following we night we went to Ricks cafe where everyone goes to watch the sunset, this place i HIGHLY recommend, it's got a great atmosphere, there are people jumping off the cliffs into the water which you can watch, you can also dance as there is a live band. It's always busy at sunset, but take a swimming costume and you can also enjoy going for a dip in the pool, if you fancy you can even eat your dinner in the pool as there are tables and chairs in the shallow end which you can sit in. The views are amazing and so is the sunset, and as for the food, that was also great. Here i would recommend the steak or the combo with fish, steak and chicken, also the BBQ chicken and again the jerk chicken. Prices here are reasonable, most highly priced meal is about $20, however the cocktails were a bit small!

The next night we went off to Irie for our last meal. This is another recommended restaurant. Here, a soup as starter is included in with the price of your main meal. Here i would recommend the lobster. The here was good, however the portions were very large, so it depends how much you can eat! The prices were pretty reasonable as well about $30 at most, but that includes the soup with bread, which was really tasty. The cocktails here were good, but i will do a full summary of drinks at the end.

Lastly, we went to coco la palm every lunchtime, as it was situated on the beach and had a lovely beach. We also went there for breakfast. Here i would recommend for breakfast the full jamaican if you like jamaican food or the continental. Again prices are pretty reasonable. At lunchtime i would recommend the jerk chicken, it was the best jerk i ate for the whole time in Jamaica it was really great!

We then went back to Mandeville for one day, and then went off to kingston for one night to the amazing Strawberry Hill situated in the Blue Mountains, many models such as Naomi Campbell and Elle Macpherson have all stayed here, and it was rated by grazia as one of its top 10 places to stay in the world! So it really is tip top. The food here was also very very very good. Really i can't recomment anything because it all tasted so good to be honest! The prices here really are quite expensive, but if you can afford it, then definitely make a trip up there because it is lovely and surrounded by amazing views, the staff are very friendly and there is an infinty pool looking over the whole of Kingston!

So lastly we came back for a couple of days to mandeville and left at the end of the week. If you go to Jamaica you must try the patties and we rate them as follows.
Number 1: Mothers patties
Number 2: Tasty patties
Number 3: Juicy patties

we also rated the Strawberry dacquri cocktails and results are as follows
Number 1: Coco la palm & Strawberry Hill
Number 2: Kuyaba
Number 3: Irie
Number 4: Rick's Cafe
Number 5: Sandals
Number 6: Margharitaville
Number 7: Travellers

Fruit and extras
other things to try! Sugar cane, coconuts fresh, oranges, ginnepes, advocado, go to any bakerys, KFC, vanilla sandwich biscuits, lays, bun and cheese, breadfruit, bammi if you want more contact me!!

thanks for reading!

Summary: yum yum jamaican food