FOOD REVIEW: Derrick's Jamaican Cuisine

coconut shrimp


brown stew chicken

MadProfessah checked out Derrick's Jamaican Cuisine (6806 La Tijera Blvd. Los Angeles, CA, 90045; 310-641-7572) the other day and was pleasantly surprised.

As regular readers of the blog will know, I have a long standing quest to find authentic, cheap, good West Indian/Caribbean food in Los Angeles. So far, the best Caribbean food in Los Angeles County I have found is Ackee Bamboo in Leimert Park.

I had visited Derrick's a long time ago (before this blog started) and was not terribly impressed. However, this visit was different. I ordered the coconut shrimp as an appetizer, followed by the brown stew chicken (which is a traditional and very common West Indian dish).

The coconut shrimp was deliciously crunchy and was matched with a delicious sweet, spicy and tangy sauce for dipping. The brown stew chicken was also excellent, well-matched with rice and peas, fried plaintains and some pretty sad steamed vegetables. The brown stew chicken is not overwhelmingly spicy-hot (that would be the jerk chicken) but instead is filled with what seems like dozens of subtle spices that delight the senses. It is also perfectly cooked, moist and falling off the bone.

Derrick's is definitely a place to get decent Jamaican and Caribbean cuisine, with a fancier (and less authentic) ambiance than other sources of West Indian fare in Los Angeles, like the Caribbean Treehouse, Juicy's and Wi Jammin that MadProfessah has also sampled recently.

AMBIANCE: B+.
SERVICE: B+.
VALUE: B.
FOOD: A-.

OVERALL: B+.