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I first spotted the Jawaiian Irie Jerk truck zipping from place to place before I noticed it had settled in the parking lot next to Century Center. The site is not in an easy place to pull into unless you’re headed Ewa on Kapiolani. Every time I saw it, I was en route elsewhere and told myself I’d check it out some other time. Some other time soon stretched into five years, and my first trip to the truck came at an Eat the Street event early this year.
I swooned over Chef Cassie Simmonds’ jerk chicken and escovitch fish, but, like any busy person, still found it hard to make a food truck a destination. You not only have to drive there, but, unless you plan to eat in your car, you need to be heading to a place where you can sit and eat comfortably.
Thankfully, Jawaiian Irie Jerk has now landed a spot in the 11th Avenue Atrium, where so many restaurants have come and gone in the past few years. Let’s hope Simmonds fares better, because it’s been more than 20 years since Oahu has had a full-service Jamaican restaurant, and we need it for cultural flavor and variety.
Usually, I’m happy to try multiple items on a menu, but at Jawaiian Irie Jerk, weaning myself away from all things jerk was difficult. It’s been a favorite of mine since I discovered a recipe for jerk chicken from New York’s "King of Jerk," Allan Vernon, in Molly O’Neill’s "New York Cookbook," which hit bookshelves in 1992. It’s so delicious with its marinade of onions, vinegar, spices and fiery peppers, but given a choice, I’d prefer someone else make it for me.
The onions, when put through a food processor with the rest of the spices, disappear into the dish, creating a remarkable paste that lends itself well to all kinds of grilled meat. On the JIJ menu, it’s possible to have it with every course if so desired, such as a spicy jerk wings appetizer ($6.95), jerk chicken wedge salad ($8.95) and entrees of jerk chicken ($12.95), pork ($13.95) or rib-eye ($14.95). The jerk wings are accompanied by festival, a semi-sweet, dry roll shaped like an elongated football.
All entrees are served with a single scoop of the house’s fluffy rice n’ peas and vegan Ital stew ($9.95 a la carte). The stew is a mix of root vegetables in coconut curry sauce. People who keep up with this column know I’m not a rice eater, but because of the spiciness of the dishes, I polished off every bit of the rice, dotted with nutty pigeon peas.
I love the heat of the Scotch bonnets that emanates from Simmonds’ jerk. Maybe it’s because he first found an eager audience among fans of reggae and never had to tamp down his recipes for timid taste buds. He said he was happy to have discovered that Scotch bonnets grow well here when he arrived five years ago. He grew up in Jamaica, learning to cook from his grandmother and mother, before attending culinary school in Kingston.
I was able to tear myself away from the jerk enough to sample other Jamaican classics of escovitch fish ($14.95) dusted with spices, sauteed, splashed with vinaigrette and topped with vegetables. I thought Jamaican roast fish (market price), a whole Kona kampachi when I tried it, would be a lot to eat, but the fish, stuffed with a mix of bell peppers, tomatoes and onions, disappeared in no time.
The other classic must-try is Jamaican curry goat ($14.95). I’ve had goat stews at Filipino restaurants around town, but they have been tough, with the goat flavor masked by the rest of the stew. Therefore, I didn’t anticipate much more from this dish, but the goat tasted so much like lamb I thought it was a substitution. Simmonds said he’s using goat meat imported from Australia, but will be sourcing it from the Big Island.
It made me wonder why Hawaii, with similar geography and island culture, doesn’t have a goat and mutton culinary tradition. In a small place, raising animals smaller than cattle would have made sense, but figuring out why things are is easier than why they aren’t.
The curry goat reminded me of Indian cuisine, owing its place on the Jamaican table due to the influence of indentured workers imported from India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While eating it, I kept thinking it would work well with a mango lassi.
Instead, there is pineapple ginger brew ($2.95), which tastes more of sugar and pineapple than ginger. Nevertheless, it’s addicting when eaten with the more fiery dishes.
What’s left for me to try is the Jamaican national dish of ackee and salt cod ($14.95), which isn’t always available because of the scarcity of the ackee, a fruit related to lychee and longan. It’s just as well because part of the fruit is poisonous.
As for the Jawaiian Irie Jerk truck, it still shows up at monthly Eat the Street events, though now with the restaurant in place, I’m liberated from jerk to venture to other trucks. Simmonds has briefly sidelined the truck to work on the next stage of his operations, selling smoked meat by the pound. Can’t wait!
Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Email her at nkam@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4775
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DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM