Brixton, my neighbourhood, is the centre of London’s Caribbean community (the Notting Hill Carnival notwithstanding). So where better to sample Caribbean cuisine for a 202 Meals outing?
Bamboula is a small, basic and busy restaurant right in the centre of town. The décor and music are perhaps a little predictable, but that does not detract from the overall atmosphere. One motive for choosing Bamboula is that it looks the most inviting of the local eateries; another is that it’s good enough for heads of state (the Jamaican prime minister, Bruce Golding, was there when he visited Brixton in May 2008). Although billing itself as Caribbean, all signs suggest that it is Jamaican—perhaps unsurprisingly, seeing as there are more Jamaicans in the UK than people from anywhere else in the Caribbean.
One look at the menu confirmed that this was going to be a three-course meal. Choosing starters was the easy part, as there are only two. The codfish fritters with love apple sauce were cod like we’d never tasted before (the sauce lending a sour fruitiness), and the plantain ring with ackee (a kind of savoury fruit) and saltfish was a good balance of salty fish and slightly sweet plantain.
The main courses—vegetarian options excepted—are all based on meat on the bone, which is stewed, curried or grilled. Andrea and Alex, both curried goat first-timers, liked theirs so much that there was some enthusiastic scraping of the bones after the meat had gone. Matt and I both had jerk meat (lamb and chicken, respectively), which is probably the most famous Jamaican dish. The taste is a pleasing combination of sweetness and a unique peppery spiciness. Matt’s lamb was flavoured with Guava, adding an extra fruity kick to the traditional jerk sauce.
Whereas the meat choices were straightforward enough, the side dishes, which all looked extremely tempting, threw the table into a fit of indecision. Matt’s “Caribbean salad” included mango and avocado as well as the usual veg, and Andrea’s rice included callaloo, a spinach-like plant. Alex opted for starch in the form of fried sweet potato; I was unable to commit to one thing, so I ordered “ground provision”—a general term for starchy sides in Caribbean cuisine, which here means green banana, yam and dumpling. To my surprise, the dumpling was a little sweeter than the banana, whereas the yam was a little too similar to potato to be exciting. We also ordered two festivals (corn fritters) to share, which were akin to doughnuts in both taste and texture, and very useful for mopping up curried goat and jerk sauce.
As always seems to happen in good restaurants, we were full (as our knowledgeable waiter predicted we would be) but not so full that we couldn’t manage dessert. Andrea and Matt’s pineapple mojito made the whole table smell of rum; Alex’s mango, pineapple and papaya crumble was a fusion of traditional England and its tropical colonies; my rum bread pudding had me craving more of the same the next day. The final pleasant surprise of the evening was the bill: the meal was altogether very good value for money. (Matt described the festivals, at 60p each, as “the best price-to-calorie ratio I’ve ever seen in a restaurant”.)
In summary
Bamboula
12 Acre Lane, Brixton, London, SW2 5SG
020 7737 6633
Open 8am to 11pm Monday to Saturday, and 1pm to 9pm Sunday
