Jamaica Food and Drink Festival 2017 : Meet Street & Final thoughts

#JFDF

For one week every October, Jamaica Food and Drink Festival brings to its patrons a culinary journey of events with different themes. Pork Palooza is everything swine, down to the desserts. Chopstix, as the name suggests, is all foods Asian. Crisp is all about crispy fried everything paired with local and international beers. Vintage is a seven-course wine pairing feast. Picante is all about the hot, zesty flavors. Meet Street & The Market is one for the kids, food trucks, restaurants, and pop up kitchens, with family entertainment. The week ends with a Sunday Brunch at the Gallery.

Jamaica Food and Drink Festival 2017 : Picante

#JFDF

For one week every October, Jamaica Food and Drink Festival brings to its patrons a culinary journey of events with different themes. Pork Palooza is everything swine, down to the desserts. Chopstix, as the name suggests, is all foods Asian. Crisp is all about crispy fried everything paired with local and international beers. Vintage is a seven-course wine pairing feast. Picante is all about the hot, zesty flavors. Meet Street & The Market is one for the kids, food trucks, restaurants, and pop up kitchens, with family entertainment. The week ends with a Sunday Brunch at the Gallery.

Jamaica Food and Drink Festival 2017 : Chopstix

#JFDF

For one week every October, Jamaica Food and drink festival brings to its patrons a culinary journey of events with different themes. Pork Palooza is everything swine, down to the desserts. Chopstix, as the name suggests, is all foods Asian. Crisp is all about crispy fried everything paired with local and international beers. Vintage is a seven-course wine pairing feast. Picante is all about the hot, zesty flavors. Meet Street & The Market is one for the kids, food trucks, restaurants, and pop up kitchens, with family entertainment. The week ends with a Sunday Brunch at the Gallery.

Crispy beef in sweet chili sauce

"Beefy"

This is a super-fast and extremely delicious dinner option. This month is all about beef, I’ll be using all different cuts to create yummy meal options that everyone who eats beef should be able to cook with ease. Some of them are a little more time consuming than others. So I decided to start off with the easiest. I’m not sure if I've ever made a faster dinner recipe for the blog. This was cooked in literally 45 minutes including photography time.

Sesame garlic fish nuggets

My Dinner

How about we have some fish. Light crispy deep-fried fish tossed in a sweet garlic sauce. I call these fish nuggets. Delicious dinner option when you are tired of chicken. This fish is full of Asian flavors, a melting pot of garlic, sesame seeds, green onions and honey. Serve this with some fried rice and that’s dinner.

Spicy Jackfruit fried Rice

M...eat...less

Hello my name is the Greedy Girl and I enjoy tricking my husband who does not eat fruits, into eating fruits. This is NOT one of those jackfruit dishes that will make you think you’re eating chicken. Reason being I used ripe jackfruit. For a sneakier way of incorporating the jackfruit you would use young jackfruit in brine, but it takes a while to cook and become tender. So I decided to skip that all together and just use the ripe ones which we can get easily in Jamaica once it’s in season. And let me tell you, it is the season.

Scallion Pancake Philly Cheese Steak Wrap

Potluck

There are several crazy things happening all at once in this one delicious bite.  There is the delicious scallion pancake, the perfectly cooked peppers and onions, the rib eye steak and then there is the garlic provolone cheese sauce. The most perfect layers of flavors one could imagine.

Shrimp toast

Time for Takeout!

Flavorful shrimp paste slathered on bread and fried to a toasty crisp. That’s all this is, pretty much shrimp croutons if you ask me. Very delicious, the onions, ginger, scallions and garlic add so much flavor to the shrimp. I love the texture difference where the bread is super crunchy with the other side being creamy with a light crisp. Who new home made shrimp toast could be so good.

Mushroom Egg rolls

Time for Takeout!

Who doesn’t love a hot crispy egg roll smothered in sauce? I love fried wontons and I also adore egg rolls. My only issue with the takeout versions is their general lack of flavor. The fillings are usually bland, but that package of soy sauce, hot sauce or duck sauce saves the day. But I dare you to try one of them without a sauce ‘no Bueno’. But these home-made babies right here are full of flavor!

Chicken Fried rice

Time for Takeout!
 

The king of all Chinese take out is the rice. Veggie fried rice, chicken fried rice, pork fried rice, special fried rice the works all delicious all easy to make at home. Today I have given you a very easy chicken fried rice but you can go to town with the choices of meats you desire.

Pork Potstickers

Time for Takeout!

There is nothing more comforting and delicious than dim sum. Next to scallion pancakes, dumplings may be my favorite takeout appetizer. They are crispy yet tender with a juicy and flavorful pork filling. Today I will show you how to wow everyone with the best pork dumplings ever!

Vegetable Lo mein

Time for Takeout!

Time for the Noodles, and it’s my favorite Lo Mein. Give me chicken, shrimp, pork veggie, I don’t mind. It’s my go to noodle dish from any take-out spot next to pad Thai. Most time I will have it all by itself. This version is quite delicious and very very easy to make.

General Tso's Chicken

Time for Takeout!

This month it’s all about takeout. Chinese food is one of my absolute favorites.  It’s actually a pretty good idea to have a few takeout recipes under your belt. Not only is it cheaper to make at home, its also healthier, because you can control your ingredients. Use organic, omit msg if you choose, the works, because you have all the control.  I will be challenging myself this entire month to make recipes that rival my favorite takeout spots. And first up is the General!

Homemade Fried Chicken

"Greedy Girl Eats"

For me fried chicken is one of the hardest things to make. I feel like restaurants in Jamaica set the bar so high with how amazingly delicious their fried chicken is that the home made ones just seem to fall short. That is why I went on the quest to find the best fried chicken; one that was seasoned, spicy and would remain crispy. I found the best one in Negril and now I'm making my own.

Greedy Girl Eats: Seaview Bar and grill Negril

"Greedy Girl Eats"

The #1 spot!

This summer I was introduced to this amazing spot. We went to the Daydreams party in Negril for dream weekend. We stayed at a hotel that was not all inclusive, so we had to find our own food. This usually poses a challenge because Negril is super expensive. The same thing that will cost $300 inland will cost $600 in Negril.  But as fate would have it, a local gave our friends a tip about a very affordable and delicious spot, they shared the wealth and the rest is history.

Greedy Girl Eats: at Dukunoo Den Cafe

 "Greedy Girl Eats"

 This restaurant is quite the gem. I am very thankful for the day we landed off the plane and opted for something other than Island Grill. Their menu changes daily and everything that I’ve ever tasted from them is quite delicious, their fried chicken is no exception. On this particular day the fried chicken angels were watching over us, we rolled into the airport for a pick up at around 3:45pm and got the last two fried chicken dinners they had. Lucky!

Greedy Girl Eats: Juici Patties

"Greedy Girl Eats"

The restaurant that was once just a patty shop, has now transformed into Jamaica’s very own fast food chain; serving breakfast, lunch and early dinners.  Juici Patties (formally Juici Beef patties) now has quite an extensive menu (hence the removal of the word beef from their name). They serve eight different types of patties, jerk, fried and bbq chicken lunches, soups, porridge's, ackee, callaloo, buns, cakes and ice-cream.  It’s like these people don’t ever want you to leave their doors, there are 50 locations across Jamaica.

Greedy Girl Eats: KFC

"Greedy Girl Eats"


I know you’re wondering why on earth  a fast food restaurant on this list. But there is no way fried chicken could be reviewed and KFC not be included.  KFC in Jamaica is not like most fast food restaurants.  Jamaica should be called KFC country, I don’t think you can find a set of people who love kfc chicken more (although I’ve heard the Trinidadians are just as bad).  There are rumors that our recipe has been altered and I am inclined to believe that. The chicken taste 1000 times better than the chicken I’ve had elsewhere, especially in NY. It’s more flavorful and more seasoned.  Here in Jamaica we have three flavors original, BBQ and hot and spicy. We also have hot wings and bbq hot wings. The general meal deal comes with chicken fried and a soda.

Gready girl eats: at Claudette’s

"Greedy Girl Eats"

Don’t let the look of this place fool you. I have been driving past this cook shop for years and had not a clue what was going on in there. Thanks to my boyfriend and his love for curry goat, for introducing me to Claudette. This place is mainly a curry goat spot. I was pleasantly surprised to find out they offered fried chicken as well. On the top of spur tree hill Claudette’s is one of two curry goat hot spots. Alex’s curry goat is the other; the only difference, Alex’s is strictly goat.

Greedy girl eats: at Mega Mart

"Greedy Girl Eats"

This is the latest addition to the Mandeville lunch time scene. Mega mart is essentially a Jamaican Wal-Mart. It houses everything under one roof, pharmacy, bill payments, grocery, household items, a really great bakery and a cafeteria. Like I said in an earlier post, the sign of good food to come is a crowd.  However Mega mart does not just have any crowd, they have a long line of persons on their lunch break waiting patiently in line to get their meals. And yes I said patiently, no one is walking out or getting frustrated because of the wait, that goes to show they must really want Mega marts food.