DA BLUE LAGOON
RATING: HALF STAR OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE
5168 North College Ave.
Indianapolis, Indiana 46205
(p)317-924-9410 (f)317-924-5276
http://www.dabluelagoon.com/
I’ve been in Indianapolis for nearly three years now. One of the things I truly missed when I left Florida was Jamaican food. My husband and I frequent the frozen aisle of the local international market. That’s where they keep the spicy Jamaican beef patties. Ok, it’s not even close to the real thing, but it helped ever so slightly. I surfed for a restaurant here to fill the void, but kept coming up short. We did meet a man who claimed to be the real deal. The patties were terrible…watery filling, bland. So we’d pretty much given up until a co-worker of mine gave me a tip that there was a place near the Broad Ripple area that I should try: Da Blue Lagoon. I scoped it out on their website. The menu looked pretty good, featuring the mouth-watering Jamaican patties, jerk chicken, and oxtails. Mmmmm! Our anticipation really built up when we tried to go there, and it was closed. They shut down in the middle of the day to prepare for dinner. When the stars finally aligned and we finally got to step foot in the joint on a Saturday in early May, shortly after 1:30pm, we were pretty excited. I have to admit we were pretty worried too. We were the only ones there. It was shortly after lunch though, so maybe we missed the rush.
The service was friendly and relatively prompt. It should have been, considering we were the only ones in there. So we wanted to get a true taste of this place. We ordered two spicy beef patties, the “large” oxtail stew meal, the “large” jerk chicken dinner, a tropical blue lemonade, and the Caribbean punch.
Let’s start with the drinks. They came out first. They’re nearly two dollars a piece and nothing really special about them. Out of the two, the tropical blue lemonade was the best. The flavor was just better than the Caribbean punch, which is surprising since it’s supposedly is made with all of this fruit juice: strawberries, mango, and lemon.
The spicy beef patties came out next. They “looked” like what we remembered from Florida, but when we tasted them, there was something strangely familiar about them--not in a good way though. My husband asked the waitress if they were made on site, she said “yes, no, they come made, and we just heat them up.” That’s where we know these from…the freezer section at the international market in Indianapolis, except when we make them at home, they’re a lot more crispy--not under heated up and soggy. They also poured some sauce on top of them and gave you a little extra of it for dipping. This sauce was terrible. It had a hint of soy sauce or something in it…much too bitter and salty.
While I’m on the topic of salt, let’s go to the main course…shall we? When it arrived, I thought it was a bad joke. We’d paid a few bucks extra per meal for the “large” portion. As you can see from the photo, there was only about two to three pieces of meat on either plate, a tablespoon full of curry veggies, and a bit of rice and beans, that was inedible. My meal, the oxtails, is described on the restaurant website like this: “Bite-size cuts of beef tails, seasoned with authentic Jamaican herbs & spices, braised and stewed in a caramelized onion-tomato based gravy with butter beans to tender perfection.” Sounds amazing, right?! It didn’t have the flavor punch I’ve experienced from Jamaican restaurants in Florida, Chicago, and oh yeah…Jamaica! They were very muted in comparison, and the meat was very fatty…so I had to eat around that, and the butter beans in the meat--I couldn’t understand them. The flavor was not appealing, and they were a bit chewy. They took away from the overall dish. I tasted the rice and beans, and while the oxtails were under-seasoned, these were OVERSEASONED. There was so much salt, we didn’t eat more than a bite and left the rest on our plates. I might as well have had a salt lick on my plate. I think now’s a good time to talk about my background. I come from generations of saltaholics--folks who add salt to their plate without even tasting it first; folks who used salt and Accent, which has sodium together in one dish; people who add salt to a dish that contains salt pork or other smoked, salted meat to flavor a dish. It was in EVERYTHING! So my taste buds are pretty dulled to salt. So when I say something’s salty, it’s salty. Now, to the curry cabbage…that was actually the highlight of everything on the plate. I’d never had it before. The seasoning was really good, and it was cooked well.
I’ve saved the best for last, my husband’s meal, the jerk chicken--a Jamaican staple, some say dates back to the mid 1600’s. Two theories exist about the name. Some say it comes from how Jamaicans poke holes or jerk the meat so it absorbs the marinade better. Others believe it comes from the Spanish word “charqui,” which means jerk or dried meat--eventually becoming “jerky” in English. Whoever’s right doesn’t matter. What matters is if you call something Jamaican jerk chicken, it had better live up to the history and importance of this dish! It doesn’t at Da Blue Lagoon. I ate jerk chicken every day when I was in Jamaica. It was spicy, juicy, tender, finger licking, come-back-for-more good. Da Blue Lagoon’s version was dry, and the seasoning was way off. I didn’t taste any smoky flavor, like the website boasts. It was a non-event in my mouth.
I know some times we all have off days, which is why I like to give people and places a second chance. However, I can say besides the people working there and how nice they were, I can’t find it in myself to give Da Blue Lagoon another try. In all, Da Blue Lagoon left me blue and still craving Jamaican food in Indy. I give it a half of a star out of a possible five stars, and that’s just for the friendly service.
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