When I heard about Miss Lily's opening in SoHo, I was a little wary. I'm not going to lie. I'd been to other wanna-be Caribbean restaurants and was a little disappointed. If you want good down-home Caribbean food, you go to the Flatbush area in Brooklyn or parts of the Bronx. Not SoHo. Yes, I am a little biased. :(
I stopped by Miss Lily's, and at the very least, I loved the vibe and decor as soon as I stepped in. Instead of the endless Rain-pocalypse we've been having the past several days in New York, it was actually a gorgeous day.
The Grace Jones poster. Love it!
I felt a little better when I saw my favorite drink on the menu. I love Ting (a Jamaican grapefruit soda). I practically live off it when I visit my family in Antigua. I can actually get it in markets here in New York City, but it reminds me of the Caribbean.
I looked up and saw that Miss Lily's was offering a pretty good selection of Caribbean drinks that my biased self didn't think it would.
Coconut water - essentially the clear juice from a coconut.
Irish Moss - WHAT?! Okay, Miss Lily's, I get it. I'm not a fan of Irish Moss drink. It's a mix of an algae called Chondrus Crispus (yes, we keep it real interesting herb-wise in the Caribbean), milk/condensed milk and most commonly vanilla flavoring.
Ginger Beer - It's a non-alcoholic ginger drink usually made of a mix of strained, mashed ginger, water, vanilla extract and sugar. The homestyle Caribbean way is not to have it carbonated (it's usually carbonated when mass produced). I think I'll get that next time.
Also they had pineapple soda. Remember when I went crazy for pineapple soda?
After noticing all of those drinks, I realized that Miss Lily's was serious. Bring on the Jerk Chicken then!
Clockwise from the top: rice and beans, jerk chicken, mango chutney, cabbage salad
As I've mentioned before, it's hard to have a meal in a Caribbean home without some kind of rice and beans. Usually it's red beans (habichuelas or kidney beans, if you want to call them that). I know that in Jamaica, rice and beans are often cooked in coconut milk. Miss Lily's got that right. While the rice didn't look all that great, it tasted great.
The cabbage salad was blah. Just some raw cabbage thrown on a plate. The chutney was new. Jamaican friends, is this common?
The star of the plate is the jerk chicken. I will say that the cooks at Miss Lily's know how to cook chicken. This piece was so ridiculously fresh and juicy. I'm docking a point for the jerk sauce being in a squeeze bottle though, and I guess this is where the authenticity gets lost. Jerk chicken is supposed to make your lips want to fall off from the spice, and I think it's best when the sauce is actually rubbed on the skin before cooking. That being said, for people with spice handicaps, then I guess it's good that they can control the heat. The jerk sauce was a good level of spice, but I had to slather it on for my tastes.
I'll be back to Miss Lily's. Any place that does Caribbean food well can get my business. Apparently it's a good place for some celebrity sightings, too.
Miss Lily's
132 West Houston Street
New York, New York
3 comments:
wtf is this mango chutney business??? WE DON'T DO THAT. hahahaha, but the jerk looks very good.
Mmm, yum! I love caribbean food! Although, Mike always shames me in front of my Trinidadian mom, because I'm a spice wimp and he, in all his blonde Germanic glory, is always ordering a super-spicy-something-or-other!
I ate here, too, and it WAS delish. Great post.
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