Now, to put on that rice, the Jamaican side of the ledger begins with curried goat, here in a really sharp, almost mentholated curry sauce with lots of ground coriander. I’ve eaten curried goat enough times to appreciate that this particular stew would not be as good with lamb.
But if you would rather have a more familiar flavor, the oxtail is a truly flavorful beef stew, with plenty of gravy, and no spice to it. The only hang-up anyone might have concerns the bones. The “barbecued chicken” baked in a tangy sauce like Boston barbecue is likewise irresistible, and chicken bones are more familiar. There’s a grilled herbal chicken for the no-spice contingent.
No bones? Okay, there’s chicken with an herbal vegetable stuffing inside a breast and a tomato sauce with some sneaky spice. There are steak and beef stews, essentially the same thing, but in the stew the steak is cut into smaller pieces and includes more vegetables, mostly onions and bell peppers, making these almost like Chinese dishes.
Vegetables are also a question of what you see. My favorite was “cabbage salad,” a shredded mixture of sautéed cabbage and onions. I also like the mixed vegetables with lots of limas, as opposed to the mixed vegetables with lots of peas and carrots, or even the mixed vegetables with lots of cauliflower and broccoli.
To wash it down, Flames II offers sodas, but also homemade Jamaican “juices.” The one I had was ginger ($3), as biting as Jamaican ginger beer, but without carbonation, and sweeter.
There are also quite a number of desserts. The one that really tickled me was “coconut rocks” ($2). This was sort of a very large cookie, but made entirely of diced coconut meat with a lot of ginger, held together with a little batter. It’s not unlike eating a fruitcake or plum pudding, but a lot crunchier and lighter. I also liked the sweet pineapple upside-down cake ($2), a kind of chocolate pound cake ($2), and a banana bread ($2) with mild spice-cake flavor. Rainbow cake ($2) looked like pound cake with all the syrups of a Hawaiian shave-ice store dribbled on by Jackson Pollack. I can’t eat that much food coloring at one time. I was also disappointed to see purchased sweet-potato pie in a restaurant where so much is homemade.
Flames II, 746 Huntington Ave, Boston | Open daily, 8 am–11 pm | No credit cards | No liquor | No valet parking | Sidewalk-level access| 617.734.1911
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Email the author:
Robert Nadeau:RobtNadeau@aol.com
