Bodega with a bare-bones, island-shanty décor selling Caribbean staples, sweets, snacks and drinks has a two-table eating nook in back and a kitchen that turns out West Indian and Jamaican delights. Folks line up at lunchtime for curry goat, ackee and salt fish, cow foot soup, brown stew fish and other island favorites. Jerk chicken is grilled out back with the authentic touch of pimento (allspice branches).
Linda Bladholm
lbladholm@MiamiHerald.com
The hand-painted signs have been known to stop drivers on busy Northeast 79th Street in their tracks: "curry goat, " "brown stew, " "ackee and salt fish, " "jerk chicken, " "cow foot soup."
At lunchtime, lines form down the block as the kitchen in back of B & M Market serves up these and many other West Indian and Jamaican favorites.
Owner and chef Nafeeza Ali oversees the kitchen while her husband, Sheir, mans the front counter, working the register. Ronald Blake, from Kingston, Jamaica, makes the bracing conch salad in V-8 juice with citrus and hot sauce and grills the jerk chicken out back over charcoal topped with leafy pimento branches.
B & M stands for Bob and Mary, an American couple from whom Nafeezas uncle bought the store in 1980. She bought it 10 years later. The Alis come from the Essequibo Coast region of Guyana and are of East Indian descent.
The decor is bare-bones, with pale blue walls, an island-shanty feel and a friendly vibe. All the food that comes out of the small, tidy kitchen is halal, meaning no pork, and much of it is laced with hot peppers. There are two dining tables, cooled by a large electric fan, but most of the business is takeout.
Most customers are West Indians, Jamaicans and Haitians who come for imports from home including huge Trinidadian pumpkins, cassareep (a type of cassava molasses), green mango kutchela (chutney) and canned breadfruit.
There's a row of hot sauces and refrigerator cases filled with bottled coconut water, fruit juices and health drinks with Irish moss and herbs. Near the register are locally baked pineapple tarts, rum cake, spice buns, and coconut and ginger bulla (cookie-shaped cakes).
A must-try is ackee and salt cod. The soft yellow fruit of a West African ornamental tree, it resembles scrambled egg and is cooked with tomato, onion and hot pepper and plated with boiled ñame (true yam), green banana, steamed cabbage and a dumpling.
Jerk chicken is seasoned with Walkerswood rub and barbecue sauce and served with house-made jerk sauce and thick slices of hard-dough bread.
Curry goat is simmered until fork tender with garlic, thyme, pepper, curry powder and garam masala (warming spice blend), good wrapped in roti bread.
There are also oxtails cooked with cinnamon, cloves, mushroom soy sauce and tomato paste and served with rice and beans; gelatinous cow foot stew; brown fish stew made with red snapper; and boiled mackerel cooked with tomato, vinegar and seasonings and served with boiled banana and dumplings.
Callallo salt fish is made with locally grown callallo (a spinach-like tropical green), steamed and cooked with salt cod (soaked first to remove the salt) in a peppery tomato base.
Portions are large, so come hungry.
