Lil’ Negril
261 Centrepointe Dr., 613-226-7575, lilnegril.com
Open: Monday to Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Prices: Mains $12 to $19
Access: No steps to restaurant, washrooms
Back in January, when the polar vortex raged in Ottawa, I was lucky enough to spend a week in Jamaica. Food-fixated even on vacation, I made a special trip beyond the resort for some top-notch jerk chicken.
Since then, I’ve been a few times to Lil’ Negril, a modest Jamaican restaurant that opened six months ago in a Centrepointe strip mall.
The jerk chicken there didn’t deliver the smokey satisfaction and Scotch bonnet-driven uppercut that was a highlight of my winter getaway. Lil’ Negril’s jerk chicken ($14.50) was a pleasantly bronzed and moist dish with some of the requisite spicing, but the dish was mellowed and even surprisingly sweetened by its sauce and accompanying mango salsa.
Still, I’d advise heat-obsessed eaters to look beyond the gentler take on an emblematic dish. (Plus, on other visits, I’ve been able to get a fiery hot sauce on the side.)
The good news is this clean and humble place of 25 or so seats does make some tasty, unpretentious dishes that are also very reasonably priced.
Respectable main courses for $14 make me take notice, especially after I’ve elsewhere had some off-the-mark small plates that were more pricey.
The simple dishes here pleased us the most. Fried chicken ($14) was succulent and not greasy, and the meat played well with a gingery sauce served on the side.
Tropical Fried Chicken at Lil’ Negril
Better still was a generous order of barbecued pork ribs ($14) that delivered tender meat coated with a sweet, sticky sauce.
Ribs at Lil’ Negril
While the restaurant’s menu aims a few wee items at children, the pre-teens with us attacked the ribs and chicken with gusto, shooing away the adults who wanted to steal some of the meat away.
Not that the adult who had ordered the jerk pork ($14) needed extra meat. This was a sizable portion that was less than tenderloin-tender but still yielding, and its seasoning and flavour had more oomph than the jerk chicken tried on a previous visit.
Curried, stew-like dishes did the trick, whether they featured bone-in goat ($15) or chicken ($14.50), thanks to mellow, warming flavours and a good selection of veg.
Goat Curry at Lil’ Negril
With each main course came a small but welcome serving of salad, fresh and delectable fried plaintains and bowls of rice studded with beans.
Only a pan-seared salmon fillet ($19) — a little flavour-deprived and over-cooked — let us down, along with the pedestrian vegetables on the side.
Pan-seared salmon at Lil’ Negril
At Lil’ Negril, the roti are served “bust up shut,” which is a more colourful way of expressing what a food snoot might call “deconstructed.” With the enjoyable shrimp roti ($15), a loose pool of curried filling was flanked by sheets of soft, doughy roti bread (“busted up shirt?”), which could be used to get the rest from plate to mouth.
Shrimp Roti at Lil’ Negril
The same smaller-sized shrimp came deep-fried in crisp wrappers in a buck-a-shrimp appetizer ($3), made for dunking into a “lava sauce” that had been perked with some Scotch bonnet-spiked hot sauce.
Dessert choices here were scant and hardly fancy. But it was hard to complain about the slice of chocolate cake, given its $3.75 price.
Chocolate cake at Lil’ Negril
So, Lil’ Negril is not an eatery that will set your world (or mouth) on fire. But the best dishes struck us as solid, approachable bargains, while the friendly service and reggae soundtrack sparked happy memories of the island.
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phum@ottawacitizen.com
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