This past Sunday was the Nottingham Caribbean Carnival on the Trent Embankment next to the Meadows. This carnival has been running since 1970 when a group of West Indians, mainly from the island of St Kitts, held a carnival parade in the Meadows.

Since then I can recall it being held on the Forest recreation ground but for the last couple of years at least, I have seen and been to it, on the embankment playing fields just over the suspension bridge. I also hear it as I live by the river on the other side of the water, which is my personal joy 🙂

We went along purely with the intention of finding some Caribbean Food, perhaps a cheeky beer, but essentially ‘Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas’ was high on the list!

Jerk Chicken at Caribbean Taste

We got there early to scope the place out and found more food stalls than I expected and there was Lots of chicken being cooked all over the place!

This chap at the Caribbean Taste stand was really on the job! I took this picture about 12.15 when we first walked in, and he was still piling stuff on that charcoal grill when we left  at about 5pm. I was well pleased to see him in action as he seemed to be on his element and was even posing with pride as I took this picture.

Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas

There were so many stalls selling the dream of  Jerk Chicken on the bone with ‘Rice and Peas’. I did choose to get mine from the guys at ‘Caribbean Taste’ just because of the effort on the grill!

So I ended up with some chopped up chicken, a big spoonful of rice topped off with a dollop of some of the gravy from the stewed chicken curry and a great big splash of BBQ sauce on top of the chicken. It looked to be a really large portion for my £6.50.

It was all very tasty and hit the spot but…

To be honest I was quite disapointed with the level of heat in the Jerk, I like mine much hotter than this and even when the seasoning is less spicy, I do like some hot spicy gravy to go with the dish that I can mix up into my rice. I didn’t really get that here.

To be fair! you really did get a lot of chicken for your money, and it was pretty good eating. I didn’t finish all the rice as that was less exciting than the chicken spice wise, although I could see whole chillies floating about on the top of the serving dish, so maybe I have just become immune to the spice levels these days.

I kind of felt that they had played it safe by toning it down a little. I also really would have just like one of those big pieces of chicken to pull apart all caveman like. Sauce and grease all over my face, that would have been Ace 🙂

Don’t get me wrong though, it was really good and some hipster will probably sell you something half as good from a van that Daddy bought for twice the price at some point #beaware 🙂

Stick with the professionals!

Lamb Patty

I also had a lamb patty which was really good, even if they did insist on warming it up in a microwave! I really don’t do nuclear powered cooking 🙂

This had a lot more spice in the gravy and plenty of minced up lamb inside it. The pastry was pretty good as well, nice and flaky and I could feel the lard seeping into my ass as I chowed my way through this hand sized treat.

It was really hard to pick out the commercially made patties from the home made ones as you were browsing the stalls. In the end we just picked this one from P.K Spices as it looked the most rustic, and by rustic we meant slightly ugly and misshapen 🙂

There was a lot of good food and a lot of people soaking up the parade and the music. It was a lot of fun and I even made a feathered friend as I was strolling around chilling out.

Not sure that Polly was that keen 🙂

Some other temptations