The Jerk Pan, Southsea
Fawcett Road has bags of character and is lined with small, family-run businesses veering from the quirky to the sublime. Ethnic food, bric-a-brac, clothing, secondhand books: take your pick.
All those shopkeepers and visitors need a cheap, comforting meal, So Desmond Clarke, Jerk Pan chef-owner, decided to open Portsmouth's first Jamaican restaurant and takeaway. He opened the tiny 24-seater last autumn and cooks alongside his mum.
If you want to meet people, this could also be the place to come. Within nanoseconds I was sitting at one of the flower-decked simple tables talking about Afro-Caribbean culture with one of Desmond's friends.
Luckily he was on hand to help explain the dishes, as Desmond was too busy in the kitchen. He was harassed as a member of staff had failed to show up.
I looked at the wall menu by the kitchen hatch, as Desmond bobbed away in the background in his smart Highbury College whites.
Naturally there's jerk chicken, the one dish which may ring bells with those less familiar with Jamaican and other Caribbean dishes. Jerk is from the Indian charqui, dried meat, a method of preservation in past lean centuries.
Desmond and his mum cook brown stew chicken; oxtail; cow foot; beef, goat and chicken curry and a whole slew of fish dishes including salt fish and ackee. The menu also incorporates street food: patties, hard dough bread, fried dumplings and green banana.
You'll also find plantain, callaloo, yam and sweet potato, Jamaican staple vegetarian dishes. Rock-bottom prices are around the 5 mark for a main course, 60p for dumplings and vegetables.
The curried jerk goat was about the most tasty homemade bowl of meat you could wish to find, the spicing perfectly judged, the meat tenderly cooked on the bone.
A mix of rice and beans was too dry, but the star of the show was the fried dumplings. They're far removed from the English variety: dense yet brioche-like. And utterly moreish.
In between mouthfuls we swapped stories of the Caribbean and of south London, home to many Jamaican restaurants.
Hard-pressed Desmond couldn't hang around in the restaurant to find out if I wanted a dessert – sweet potato pudding and carrot cake was available at 1.50. The Jerk Pan is also unlicenced, so no wine or beer.
When it came time to pay, a 20 note couldn't be changed.
'Pay me next time, I have no change,' he said. Imagine trust like that in your average caf. I nipped to a nearby shop, returned and paid. 'I hope you enjoyed it!' Desmond beamed. The food, yes.
But a little more time spent on the customers may come in handy, Desmond. My bill came to 6.20.
The Jerk Pan, 78 Fawcett Road, Southsea PO4 ODN: (023) 9281 6344
Open:10am–11 pm Mon-Sat
Food: ****
Service: **
Atmosphere: ***
Disabled access: Narrow door and little inside space. Perhaps not suitable for wheelchairs.
How to get there: Fawcett Road is off the Fratton, Goldsmith and Churchill Avenue roundabout. The restaurant is on the right side of the road going south. On-street parking.
Carol is a chef, former restaurateur and editor of Savour, the Guild of Food Writers magazine
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Friday 10 February 2012
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