I'm Only Here for the Food!

Taste Nice Caribbean Restaurant
13448 108th Avenue
Surrey, BC

Surrey, BC… No offence to anybody who lives there but it is one of those places in Metro Vancouver in try not to go to. It has nothing to do with the culture or population or what not. Rather, I find it lacking… As a result, it shouldn’t be any surprise I have not blogged any restaurants over there. OK, I have not blogged the other neighboring cities (Coquitlam, Port Moody and so on) but given the population in Surrey, there ought to be good eats there, right? A couple of days ago, I had to go to the Whalley area of Surrey and that gave me a perfect excuse to drop by a restaurant. ANY restaurant, as it was around lunch time and I was hungry!

Now, before I continue, I must say there is a large South Asian population in Metro Vancouver. For some reason I am not aware of, a lot of them have chosen Surrey to be their home. Given that case, one would think I would end up in an Indian (or similar) restaurant, right? Well, not really! Although I have not really blogged any Indian restaurants yet, it is not because I don’t like their; rather it is because going solo to an Indian restaurant is an odd experience. But, I promise I will do that soon, OK? Back to this post: the first place that caught my attention was Taste Nice Caribbean Restaurant.

I must also mention there was a reason why I ended up in this place. A couple of months ago, I visited Kiss Yo Mama, a Caribbean restaurant in Burnaby. I was awaiting for a chance to visit another similar restaurant to make some comparisons and Taste Nice gave me that opportunity.

When I arrived, I was hesitant to walk in. See, although there was an “Open” sign blinking, on the door there was their schedule saying it was not open on Sundays (the day I was there). Seeing there were some customers seated, I took my chances. Hey, the worst that could happen? Getting myself kicked? Nah… ^_^;

The restaurant is small: 4 booths plus the two tables in the picture above and the table I was seated. I have the odd theory it might be because of (1) the area and (2) because takeout/delivery seems to be what they emphasize more on. In fact, their weekday/regular schedule goes from noon to ~8:00 p.m. (depending on the day). Anyway, I am writing about this chance encounter (literally because this was their first Sunday open!). Oh, yeah, the other customers were seated in one of the booths.

Now, the food. For drinks, I ordered Ting, a grapefruit flavoured pop/soda, popular in the Caribbean. At $3, it is not cheap for pop/soda, specially for a 350mL bottle which tastes like Squirt. But, I am not making any judgment on that… And the entree was… Goat curry!

I find it funy I was not in an Indian restaurant in Surrey but ended up ordering a curry! At first, I was not sure if I would like it or not. The problem being that the curry sauce was thin, really thin. It was almost like a soup (if not slightly thinner). I quickly found out it was not such a bad idea. The rice (with beans in it) quickly absorbed the curry sauce, hence, thickening it slightly. The meat was a bit bone-y but had enough chunks. If I must complain about this place, there are two things I could mention: First is the vegetable, or lack of. Aside from the two slits of tomatoes, it was the curry and the rice. That’s it. My second “complain” would be the spiciness. I was expecting it a bit more “hot”. OK, there was hot sauce on the table but it is not the same when they add some spices while preparing the curry.

During my meal, a person identified as Nigel, walked by and started to chit-chat a little bit. He was quite friendly, making myself welcome. But, I must warn anybody who would go there: service is really laid back. In fact, despite the restaurant was almost empty, it took several minutes to fetch anything – in my case, I ended up walking to the cashier to pay after asking and waiting the bill for over 5 minutes.

Now to the main question: how was the food compared to Kiss Yo Mama? I would say it is not exactly the same. Food was good but I found Kiss Yo Mama’s slightly better. Only slightly, as in razor thin…