Caribbean Grill

A slightly rundown strip mall near the intersection of two major highways may not be the first location you’d expect to find a wee taste of the islands, but you’d be wrong. Caribbean Grill is many things -- a grocery store, a restaurant, a live music venue -- but most of all it’s a place to get damn fine jerk chicken. Besides Jamaica’s famous spicy grilled poultry, there are also curried goat, meat patties, stewed oxtail and appropriately Caribbean beverages including ginger beer and Jamaican sodas. Service is warm and friendly, if perhaps a bit slow (remember, they’re on island time), so relax and have another Red Stripe while you gaze at the island-themed murals and await your food. Those bearing a hearty appetite will find value in the lunch buffet, where they can load up on curried chicken, cabbage and red beans and rice; hot-heads will want to ask for a bottle of the blazing hot scotch bonnet sauce.