FEATURE
4 Really Different Places CARIBBEAN, INDIA, JAPAN, MAYFAIR...
My taste buds have travelled far and wide to bring you this piece. by Gemma Speakman You’ve got a stinker of a head cold. How many times have you just skipped a meal or, when you have chowed down — desperate even for some taste bud reverberation from the food you so normally love — realised that sadly, truth be told, you might as well have served yourself up a helping of cardboard on cardboard? A good meal is a total waste, no, a total frustration when you can’t smell properly, which indicates how closely intertwined smell and taste actually are and how it’s actually both of those senses hard at work that makes the food so satisfying and good. Or tells you it’s off and not to eat it to preserve your constitution. This former fact is notable when you start to smell the relatively new Caribbean affair, RUDIE’S on the High Street in Stoke Newington. You get a whiff of the place a fair way off (starts kind of at the humungous ‘Beyond Retro’) then it thickens as you approach. The mouth saliva obliges in anticipation but the absolute sensory deluge that transcends once the doors open is something you can’t quite prepare yourself for. It is probably one of the only places I’ve been to eat where I’ve genuinely been tempted to stand and fan the aromas into my face feeling like I am tast40
ing the food without anything actually going past my lips. It smells SO good. This jerky, smoky, but all the same slightly indistinguishable scent keeps you guessing, and annoying other diners by swishing doors, trying to pin down what it actually smells of. Smoke? Chilli? Secret Caribbean ingredients? There’s an impenetrable depth to it and the contents of the YA MAN! meat platter are the same. No wonder: ’24 hours in our own secret real jerk marinade cooked over the charcoal and wood smoke on the traditional drum’. It’s delish but a small tip: don’t have the Peppa Shrimp as a starter before the jerk as the fish is so spicy it kind of momentarily disables the taste buds, making the intricacies of the jerk a little redundant and wasted. I’d recommend having it afterwards instead, with one of their amazing salads especially the avo, mango and cucumber salad, Y.O.M. The rice and peas feel meaty and wholesome and the curried ox tongue is excellent too. Don’t skimp on the dessert either as the sorbets are total solace in your hot mouth afterwards and the rum cake with rum caramel sauce and ice cream is like a sumptuous Christmas pudding where you least expect to find it.
Cibare Food Magazine
www.cibare.co.uk