Danni’s on Mansfield Road has popped up in the last month or so inside the space that was once filled by Deva. It is a small restaurant specialising in Caribbean food cooked by a Jamaican Chef. I popped into town this week to try them out as I really love this style of food and locally is seems that I am so lucky to be hunting down more and more places serving it.

 

I first saw it a few weeks back when I walked by on a pub crawl up the road between The Peacock Pub and The Lincolnshire Poacher.  What was it that grabbed my attention? Well apart from a chalkboard outside offering all sorts of tasty sounding dishes, there were little bits of paper in the window ‘Jamaican Chef’, ‘Caribbean Food’, and another one listing scrummy sounding dishes such as ‘Jerk Chicken’, ‘Oxtail’, and ‘Curry Mutton’. I knew that I would have to come back.

 

By the time I arrived at about 6.30-7pm they were running low on some of the food at the counter. They still had Curry mutton, Jerk Chicken, Oxtail, Curry Chicken, and Stewed Chicken, and a couple of other rice dishes left.

I was told that there was more chicken in the kitchen, but really I was sold once I heard that they had Mutton and Oxtail. So I was being cheeky and asking for a combination plate of both of those two dishes.

£6 Meal Menu box

Size wise you could choose from small, medium, and large for £4, £5, or £6 which was one dish with a side of rice, or ‘rice and peas’. If you eat in they will put it on a proper plate for you which I did. If you take it away it comes in a yellow box, and those boxes are on the counter to show you the size and also doubling up as a menu board. Even the small box looks huge, so a Medium £5 was going to be plenty for me.

Mutton Curry, Oxtail, and ‘Rice and Pea’s plate

I ordered a little bit of the Oxtail and a little bit of the Mutton Curry, and a side of ‘rice and peas’ which with a can of pop came to £6.20. I ended up with quite a bit of a mixture on my plate, a tasty combination, yet perhaps not one that I should have put together. Both the Mutton Curry and the Oxtail were very good, but they both had quite a mild flavour and a mild spice, and I should probably have had some Jerk Chicken on their instead to spice it up a little.

The Mutton Curry had that lovely mild spicing and distinctive flavours that I love to look forward to when getting some home cooked Caribbean food. The meat was quite fatty in a good way and was falling of the bone. There was not that much of it and other places I have been give bigger portions of the meat, but having said that I did ask for a mixture so maybe you would get more if you just had the Mutton Curry.

The Oxtail was also pretty good, it was a darker richer meaty treat, mixed with a sauce that was filled with peppers and beans. Again there was not a large portion of the meat and I would hope to get more if I had it on its own. There was plenty of the ‘rice and peas’ though to fill you up, and even though that also is quite mild, you can spice it up a little by adding some of the hot sauce from the bottle on the table

Overall I did like both dishes, there was a lot of that ‘rice and peas’, but would have liked a bit more meat on the plate.

Next time I will be trying the Jerk Chicken, and I will be having a massive plate full of it

Where is Danni’s Restaurant?

Located at 19 Mansfield Road in Nottingham just about a couple of minutes past The Peacock Pub