There's been a tropical vibe in the Daily Info office over the past week. Creation Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum's Under the Sea day (which you can hear all about on the our podcast!) was the trigger, and we've been humming Little Mermaid tunes and dousing our sandwiches in West Indian hot pepper sauce ever since. In unrelated news, I recently got a powerful hankering to try out the Cowley Road's newest Caribbean restaurant, Spiced Roots.
The food and drink on offer at Spiced Roots is pan-Caribbean. Head chef Hasan deFour hails from Trinidad, but the menu is scattered with Jamaican jerk dishes and at least one item originating from the Rastafarian Ital tradition (no meat, no fish, no salt). The rums come from all over - have a look at their dedicated menu, which lists different types from Cuba, Venezuela, Guyana and Bermuda, among other places. If you scroll halfway down their website you will find a map of the entire Caribbean with various countries helpfully highlighted. Barbados, it turns out, is absolutely tiny. The Dominican Republic is quite big.
Rum is one of the restaurant's main selling points. The selection has been custom designed by a man called Ian Burrell, who seems to have achieved undisputed status as a "Global Rum Ambassador" and who has a Guinness World Record in his Twitter profile picture to prove it (he's even set up a rum bar in Antarctica!). There certainly is more variety above the bar than I had ever seen before, although I can warn you from experience to stay very far away from the stuff called Stroh 80. It is Austrian, 80% alcoholic, and unfortunately the "sweet notes of Demerara sugar, potpourri and butterscotch" are ever-so-slightly overwhelmed by the more immediate notes of misery, doom and despair.
Back to the sunny Caribbean. My pal Miranda and I walked into the restaurant with hungry bellies and high expectations. She is from California, and had been getting excited about eating one of the only cuisines it is difficult to find on the US west coast. First impressions are that the decor is fairly stripped-back: polished wood floors and metal tables. There is a large painting of a beach and some Tiki-style thatching above the bar to remind you of your tropical surroundings. It has just turned 7pm, which means that happy hour has begun and there is 2-4-1 rum punch to be had. We try two different versions: one with dark rum, the other light. Both are the deep yellowy-orange colour of turmeric. The former is rich, fresh, sweet and slightly spiced - delicious. The latter is less good, with not quite enough flavour and a little too much sweetness.
The launch menu is seriously impressive. There are just the right number of dishes (~12ish mains, 8 starters, 4 puddings). Ingredients like tamarind, pomegranate, plantain and pineapple crop up everywhere. We feel like we would happily eat everything on offer and are a little sad that (a) stomach size and (b) destitution are limiting factors
We plump for some jerk wings and a plate of saheena - fried split pea and spinach fritters showcasing the influence of (East) Indian indentured servants in Trinidadian cooking - with a smear of tamarind and cumin sauce. Everything looks fantastic, presented with flair on pretty rectangular plates that seem to be hand-made. Miranda says the wings are succulent but, wailing and gnashing of teeth, the jerk sauce is a little synthetic tasting. The saheena are tasty but a bit on the oily side, and the cumin flavour doesn't really come through in the sauce. We cheerily polish off our rum and move on to our mains.
As a weak and feeble and non-committed vegetarian, I don't really enjoy tempeh. Tempeh is Indonesia's answer to tofu, a fermented, protein-rich meat substitute made from soy beans that, with all the best will in the world, looks like a knock-off version of spam. Our waitress, though, insists that the jerk tempeh is so delicious that it might even be the best thing on the menu, and I can't really say no to that. It turns out that she's got a point. The tempeh chunks in the mound of food I am given are rich, flavourful, and complemented perfectly by the velvety combination of black rice and avocado chunks. Miranda makes approving noises about her curry goat, and the dollop of potato and chickpea curry I try from her plate is excellent. By far the best thing on the table, though, is the side of fried plantains we ordered as an afterthought. They are sweet. They are juicy. They are just the right colour of golden-brown. They are some of the best plantains I have ever eaten, and I went through a phrase this spring of cooking at least one plantain a day for breakfast.
By this point, the staff seem to have clocked that my attempts to surreptitiously photograph everything might be the mark of a reviewer. Either that, or they are offended by our sobriety. All I know is that a couple of rum punches make their way to our table without us asking. They are on the house, apparently.
It's difficult to crave anything other than a lie down after all that food, but in the name of a comprehensive review Miranda and I nobly agree to share a pudding (you're welcome). We chose a chocolate fondant. The crème anglaise that accompanies it on the menu looks suspiciously like ice cream in real life, but there have been worse surprises. Everything is a little on the sweet side and the chocolate might benefit from some salt, but it is essentially quite tasty. Miranda has to flit off and meet some friends at this point. I am left to forlornly fail to finish it by myself.
I really enjoyed dinner at Spiced Roots. The vibe is nice, the staff are friendly, the dishes are inventive and occasionally excellent. They have enough rum to satiate Jack Sparrow. Go along, get the plantains, get some more of the plantains and avoid the Stroh like the plague. Enjoy!
We spent: £60 for a three-course dinner for two, incl. drinks.