I’m really gunna miss East London (farewell Pizza Union, Beer & Buns, Clutch and Song Que, I won’t forget you.) But the move to South London really excites me food-wise and I’ve already found where I’m gunna get my fix of fantastic fresh fish and really well priced Caribbean food.

It was 9pm on a Saturday night and Brixton village was rammed. We had originally sat at the place opposite that did burgers and grilled meat. After being ignored twice by the shirty waiter (meaning angry, not wearing shirts), we left and instead sat down at Etta’s. I’m so glad we did. None of us have much knowledge about Caribbean food (apart from those Jerk seasonings and sauces you can buy in supermarkets that bear no resemblance to the real deal.) 

Etta’s is a seafood restaurant, and bravely, they only serve seafood (with 1 vegetarian option.) There are plenty of choices. If you like fish. Which we do. So we got stuck in.

FOOD
The dishes are really well priced and portions are decent. There was a long wait for the food, but it made me feel like I was on holiday (trips to Asia and Africa have taught me that other countries have much more patience when it comes to eating out than us Brits, who often rate a restaurant based on their ability to deliver you food before you’ve reached your table. )

Ackee n Salt Fish was the strangest, most addictive dish on the table – it’s basically sauteed onions, rawish green and red peppers, salty dry flakes of fish, pillowy scrambled egg-textured ackee fruit, all mixed together with that lovely sweet heat you get from scotch bonnet chillies. It was sweet, spicy, salty and sour all in one, and would recommend giving it a go.

The Jerk Prawns were in their shells and marinated in a jerk paste that was lovely and course, so you could still make out strings of bashed up ginger root and chilli seeds. There was a really deep taste of allspice, cinnamon and cloves which at first is strange as all I could think about was Christmas candles, but with zingy herbs like thyme and chilli it does work. I sucked every last morsel of jerk from those prawn heads

Rice and Peas or long grain rice and tinned kidney beans. There was a subtle taste of allspice but altogether this didn’t really add much and you could tell that there was a little scrimping going on here to keep costs down

Cornettos: Sadly they’d run out of the dessert on the menu and we were just coming to terms with this sad news when our waiter presented us with 4 shiny silver wrapped cornettos (not much more will please a Swansea girl than presenting her with free ice cream.)

I’ve just been reading online reviews for Etta’s Seafood Kitchen and apparently the lobster is to die for and the seafood curry comes with 1/4’s of crab and a nutcracker for the shells. Next time, I’m taking my housemates once we’ve moved into our new place just down the road, and I’m going to tackle that whole lobster with bare hands and a napkin stuffed down my top.