Tonight, Susan and I decided to try something new for dinner and ended up at Tina’s Jamaican Caribbean Restaurant in the middle of Providence’s Little Italy (which is actually simply becoming the dining district with all the great food of various ethnicity). I had heard their food was good, but it’s always empty. I think they do a lot of take out business. The waitress was really nice. We started by splitting the coco bread (bread made with coconut milk) and a beef patty. They were both excellent. I ordered the curried goat and Susan got the curried chicken. Both meals came with vegetables (which was cabbage and peppers and some other stuff), rice and peas (peas are actually red kidney beans), and fried plantains (which were quite delicious). Both our meals were excellent. The chicken and goat were so tender, there was no need for a knife. I had never had goat before, but it was like a greasier lamb. It peeled right off the bone and was very tasty.
The only thing I didn’t like was sorrel, which is like a berry wine with rose petals (it’s not alcoholic). The rose petals added too much perfuminess to it that made it a bit unbearable, but it still tasted good. We both left very satisfied and Susan even took some home. I think we’ll be going back there again. It’s definitely worth a visit. Don’t let the lack of customers deter you, the food is awesome.
Tonight I decided to try one of the beers from, new to RI, Fort Collins Brewing. I tried their Z Lager, which is a rauchbier. It pours a darker reddish amber color with almost no head. It smells of caramel and other malts with a hint of smoke. The taste isn’t quite as smoky as I would have liked, but it is nicely smoked. It’s an easy drinking beer and worth a try as it’s one of those styles you don’t see very often. Fort Collins is likely a welcome addition to RI.
On Wednesday, I had Southern Tier’s Cherry Saison from their imperial beer series. I’ll start off by saying that I wasn’t crazy. It was a little dark for a saison. It had a cloudy orangy yellow hue to it. It smelled of spices and a slight hint of cherry. The flavor lacked the cherry, which wasn’t too bad, but it had too much of something and not enough of something else. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about this beer seemed off. I didn’t finish the bottle. It wasn’t overly drinkable and it is definitely not worth another try. In fact, if you have to drink the whole bottle yourself, it’s not worth the price. It’s worth trying if you’re going to split the bottle with 2-4 other people.
According to Forbes, Providence is the fourth “hard-drinking” city in the country. It seems they get their rankings by taking the percentage of residents who had at least one drink in the last 30 days, the percentage of men who had at least two drinks per day and women who had a least one drink per day, and the percentage of residents who had five or more drinks on one occasion.
I don’t know why I care, but I like seeing Providence ranked high on lists. We were beat out by Austin, TX; Milwaukee, WI; and San Francisco, CA. The only other area city on the list was Boston, which came in ninth. Keep drinking Providence!
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