A top-notch jerk joint

It’s often the most unassuming restaurants, those off the beaten track, that serve the most memorable meals: a hole-in-the wall on some side street with the best burritos ever; a basement dive serving unforgettable dumplings. These surprising finds are all about home cooking, traditional fare learned in a family kitchen, watching a parent or grandparent and then taking those lessons to the next level.

Cari Blue is like that. Tucked into an unassuming block of lower Broadway Street in Redwood City, the restaurant is easily overlooked, despite its colorful window signage. Inside, the open space is bright and open, with cerulean blue walls, a few potted palms and simple, unadorned tables. Behind the counter, enticing aromas waft from a tiny open kitchen. With a pay-at-the-counter approach, a self-serve cooler of chilled beverages and a hand-lettered menu board overhead, you know right away that ambiance is not the restaurant’s big selling point. Happily, the food is.

Owner Abel Cano and his wife, Lulu, opened Cari Blue not quite three years ago, offering breakfast and lunch comprising Mexican staples with a smattering of Caribbean dishes. While Mexican food is plentiful in Redwood City, Caribbean cuisine is not, and patrons started asking for more. So the menu evolved as Cano culled recipes from his childhood in Guatemala, focusing on the country’s unique amalgam of Spanish, Mayan, African and Caribbean cultures. Corn, beans, rice, pork, chicken and plantains form the backbone of the current fare. All main dishes come with a mound of rice, the ideal medium for soaking up the delicious sauces.

Cari Blue is not breaking new ground here. If all you know about Caribbean food is jerk, you will not be disappointed in the versions offered here. Cano marinates chicken and pork for four days in a special mix of spices, jalapeño and citrus until the meat is velvety. The jerk chicken ($9.95) was an immediate rave — spicy and complex with incredibly tender meat, a spicy crust and plenty of bite. I was delighted from the very first zesty bite. It’s served with generous dollops of coconut rice and soft, sautéed plantain so some sweet is available to counterpoint the heat. The dish is the real deal and a definite winner.

Oxtail ($11.95) is a house specialty, with tender dark meat clinging to small chunks of bone. While the dark gravy is rather too thick for my sensibilities and the bones a bit awkward to handle, the flavors are deep, rich and complex, with hints of clove and just enough heat. This is a dish to eat with good friends since the best way to savor the meat is to pick up the bones with your hands and gnaw away.

The curry flavors that pervade Caribbean cuisine are offered in various permutations on the menu, including chicken, pork, lamb, goat and shrimp. In a nod to Mexico’s pervasive influence, Cari Blue offers chipotle chicken ($9.95), a blistering entrée that will test the taste buds of the most diehard heat freaks.

A side dish called corn festival ($4.75) is made up of three dense torpedoes of bland cornbread — a lackluster counterpoint to all the zippy flavors and the only real disappointment of my visits. Traditionally, “festival” means fried dumplings in Carib lingo.

Some of the appeal of Cari Blue lies in Cano himself, who makes a decided effort to make visitors feel welcome and accommodate different tastes. He offers vegetarian versions of his curry and jerk entrees, and eat-in meals are served on real plates with real utensils. Though I visited anonymously, Cano joined me at my table to check on my experience and remembered me when I returned several weeks later. His enthusiasm is evident when he talks about his family’s cooking, especially the oxtail, which he says reminds him of home.

Cari Blue isn’t the most refined take on Caribbean food the Peninsula has to offer, and décor is well-meaning but minimalist. But if you’re craving a taste of abuela’s home cooking — if you’re fortunate enough to have a grandmother who knows how to make a zesty jerk sauce — then Cari Blue definitely does the trick.

Freelance writer Ruth Schechter can be emailed at Ruths315@sbcglobal.net.

Cari Blue

1660 Broadway St., Redwood City

650-315-1262

caribluerestaurant.com

Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Credit cards: Yes

Reservations: No

Catering: Yes

Takeout: Yes

Outdoor seating: No

Parking: Street

Alcohol: No

Happy Hour: No

Noise level: Low

Bathroom cleanliness: Excellent

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