West Indian – The Saboscrivner

Sherry’s Trini Flavors

Sherry’s Trini Flavors (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090751170325) is a wonderful Trinidadian restaurant set up inside a gas station convenience store at 1200 West State Road 436, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, shortly before Altamonte Springs blends into Apopka to the west. It is closed Sundays and Mondays, but open every other day from 11 AM until 7 PM. As you can guess, Sherry’s Trini Flavors is primarily a takeout operation. The menu is simple, you order at the counter, and they prepare your food to enjoy somewhere else — somewhere you can sit down to fully appreciate its savory flavors.

I appreciate that Sherry’s is a lot closer to home for me than the venerable Singh’s Roti Shop and Caribbean Shack (formerly known as Vindi’s), all the way out in Pine Hills in West Orlando. I have been there twice now, and I think the food is just as good as those two popular restaurants, and probably even better, despite the smaller menu at Sherry’s. Singh’s has all those Trinidadian Chinese specialties, and both Singh’s and Caribbean Shack serve oxtails, which I am sad to say Sherry’s does not. I thought I might have missed oxtails on my first visit last year, but they are not on the menu, and I confirmed on my latest visit this past weekend that they don’t serve them at all. But as much as I love those tender, unctuous cuts, Sherry’s Trini Flavors offers plenty of other delicacies, including other rich, savory, bone-in stewed meats.

On my first visit, I ordered the stew chicken dinner that came with fried rice (not rice and peas) and delicious, savory, occasionally stewed chickpeas called channa (a name that reminds me of a really cute girl I had a crush on until she went to Birthright and came home obsessed with the IDF soldier she hooked up with over there). The stew chicken isn’t as sweet and tangy as Jamaican-style “brown stew” chicken, which usually seems to involve ketchup. Still, the mostly dark meat is seasoned and stewed to perfection, literally falling off the bones. If you like chicken but have never tried Trinidadian stew chicken, your life won’t be complete until you do, and this would be a perfect place to start.

On my more recent visit, I couldn’t help ordering stew chicken again! This time I got the roti option that comes with potatoes, channa, and one of two types of roti, which I will talk about soon, rather than the “dinner” that comes with rice. The chicken was even better than I remembered. No regrets here.

On my first visit, this was curry duck, which was much spicier than the stew chicken, but not as spicy as you might be worried about. Apologies for not scooping out a few chunks of tender, rich, bone-in duck meat, but the containers all leaked a bit, and it was a mess at the time. The meat was easily falling off the bones.

And this was my favorite meat I’ve tried at Sherry’s so far, which I got on my most recent visit: curry lamb. Goat is much more popular in Caribbean cooking, but my wife really, really adores baby goats, so the least I could do is not bring that meat home to eat in front of her. Since we have both frolicked with super-cute baby goats in the pasture at Orlando’s Wildflower Farm, I don’t eat goat meat anymore. But I’ve never met a lamb, so I have no such compunction about eating those guys, possibly my favorite protein of all. This was tender, braised meat, very easy to separate from the bones, and seasoned to perfection. It was served with more potatoes and channa. This savory stewed curry lamb was so incredible, I didn’t even miss oxtails.

When you order these proteins as roti, they come with stewed potatoes instead of rice, channa, and your choice of two warm flatbreads that are served folded up like a hot towel, but can be unfolded to be about the size of a large, round towel. These are the roti, and if you love tortillas, pita bread, Turkish lavas bread, Indian naan, or Malaysian parathas, you absolutely have to try the roti here. They are very different from other roti I’ve had, which are flakier like parathas (the love child of a flour tortilla and a buttery croissant). These are big, billowy blankets meant to tear off pieces and dip or scoop them in the rich sauces or create little wraps with the meats and channa.

The yellow-tinted roti is called the dhal puri or daal puri, which is stuffed with tiny granules of ground yellow split peas. If you’re anything like me, you might create a dust storm of split pea bits all over the table when you tear off a hunk of the dhal puri, even if you’ve had it before. It is really good, but believe it or not, there’s another roti I like even more.

This roti edges out the dhal puri for me, and it is the only one my wife likes. Sorry, loves. And she doesn’t even share my obsession with Trinidadian food! It has the delightful name of the “bussup” or or sometimes “buss up shut,” Caribbean slang for a tattered, torn, or “busted up” shirt. It is thicker than a flour tortilla and chewier than most pita bread. Greasier, too. But it is soooo good whether you choose to dip, scoop, or wrap with it.

This was one of the doubles I got on my first visit, served on a plate so I could enjoy it fresh on the premises. Doubles are a beloved street food from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and one of the most delicious vegetarian foods I can think of. It is made of two small, chewy, fried flatbreads with channa in between them. The green stuff you see is a spicy condiment that I just loved, giving these doubles the edge over the ones I’ve tried from Singh’s and Caribbean Shack. I ordered even more doubles to bring home on both of my visits. They are somewhat messy to eat (both drippy and greasy), but awesome.
On my most recent visit, I brought home four doubles and wolfed down two of them while they were still warm. The others heated up just fine in the mick-row-wah-vey. You can add any of the proteins to your doubles as an upcharge, but I kinda like them as their own thing.

On my first visit, I also tried the macaroni pie, which is essentially a baked macaroni and cheese casserole with long ziti-like noodles, served in slices. I’ve had somewhat dry, slightly overcooked macaroni pie elsewhere, but this one had the meltiest, cheesiest texture, and I loved it.

So after trying this kind of food at three different local restaurants, I absolutely love it and recommend it to all. Even if it is completely unfamiliar to you, the closest comparison I can make is Jamaican food, followed by Indian food, but Trinidadian is very much its own thing. I am so glad Sherry’s Trini Flavors exists, and it is a heck of a lot closer to me than the other restaurants in Pine Hills. I will be returning much more often to treat myself and slowly work my way through the menu. While Sherry’s menu does not offer as many different dishes as Singh’s or Caribbean Shack, the standards I’ve tried are all top-notch, clearly made with love and care in a tiny operation, hidden away from most, that deserves to be discovered and loved.

Caribbean Shack, formerly known as Vindi’s Roti Shop and Bar

EDITOR’S NOTE: As of mid-March 2023, I learned that Vindi’s Roti Shop and Bar has changed its name to Caribbean Shack.

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After discovering the delicious new world of West Indian food with my review of Singh’s Roti Shop earlier this year, I craved more. The Trinidadian and Guyanese flavors were similar to Jamaican dishes I had always loved, with with some Indian influences too. After posting my review of Singh’s on the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook, a lot of people recommended Vindi’s Roti Shop and Bar (https://www.facebook.com/VindisRotiShopAndBar/), formerly known as Annie’s Roti Shop, located at 805 S Kirkman Road, Suite 106, Orlando, FL 32811, mere minutes away from Singh’s on Old Winter Garden Road. I visited Vindi’s a while back and ordered a bunch of different dishes to sample, enough for three or four meals, so I could compare and contrast them.

First of all, since Vindi’s doesn’t have a menu online or paper menus to take with you, I took photos of the menu screens on their large TVs:

I ordered:

An oxtail meal ($14.50), which comes with stewed potatoes, curried chickpeas called channa, and a choice of either rice or a choice of huge, fluffy, soft flatbreads called roti. My trip to Singh’s clued me in to the two different kinds of roti, so I chose my favorite, the “buss up shot,” like a big, chewy paratha, named for the “busted-up shirt” it resembled when torn into pieces to scoop up the tender stewed meat and vegetables. Because my wife and I both loved the buss up shot so much at Singh’s, I ordered a second one for $3.

The buss up shot, which unrolls and unfolds to become an absolutely huge blanket of soft, fluffy wonderfulness:

This was the boneless curry/stew chicken meal ($10), also served with stewed potatoes and channa. I love Jamaican-style brown stew chicken, which is usually cooked until tender with the bones, but this chicken being boneless made it easier to scoop up with roti. This is after I transferred it to a microwavable plastic container for later. I realize it might not look appetizing in this photo, but it smelled so delicious and tasted even better.

I decided to go with the other roti variety with this meal, the dhal puri, which is more of a golden color and stuffed with seasoned chickpea particles that add texture. I can’t seem to find that photo, but it looked very similar to the dhal puri I got at Singh’s and photographed in that review back in March.

Vindi’s came highly recommended for its doubles ($1.50), a beloved Trinidadian street food with channa sandwiched between two fried paratha-like patties. This doubles had a slight sweetness to it, and I liked the flavor and texture even more than Singh’s version of the doubles.

A peek inside the doubles:

Similar to how saltfish is a popular breakfast food in Jamaica (and the national dish when served with a local fruit called ackee), Vindi’s serves smoke herring as a breakfast dish, stuffed into a fried bread called fried bake (sometimes “fry bake” or just “bake”). I am all about smoked fish at any time of day, whether it’s delicate, luxurious sable on a bagel, whitefish salad on a bialy, saltfish with ackee or stuffed into a golden fried patty, or even good sardines or sprats out of a can. I loved this fried bake with smoke herring ($6.50), which was mashed up, served warm, and mixed with some spicy vegetables. I ate half for lunch and half for dinner, but I can only imagine it would be a breakfast of champions. The thing on the left above is an extra plain fried bake ($2) that I ordered for my wife, since I knew she wouldn’t be into the smoke herring.

I also got two aloo pies ($2 each), one for me and one for my wife — a soft, fluffy fritter stuffed with seasoned mashed potatoes. It was very good, and very similar to the aloo pie I tried at Singh’s. I couldn’t tell any major difference between the two.

Finally, I got a Solo brand cream soda for myself, and a Solo sorrel drink for my wife. (Solo is a Trinidadian brand, and these were $2.50 each.) I asked what sorrel tasted like, and a helpful guy waiting in line next to me said it tasted like hibiscus. My wife loves jamaica (hibiscus-flavored) aguas frescas from Mexican restaurants, so I knew she would appreciate that. I tried a sip, and it had an aftertaste that included cloves and possibly cinnamon — not my thing, but she seemed to like it. The cream soda reminded me a little of a bubble gum flavor, maybe banana, possibly cotton candy, but it didn’t have the vanilla flavor I’m used to from American cream sodas. But don’t get me wrong, I liked it, and I’m glad I tried it. I’m trying really hard to drink less soda, but I always like to try different root beers, cream sodas, and orange sodas.

Anyway, Vindi’s Roti Shop and Bar was awesome. I can’t tell you if it is better than Singh’s, but I loved both, and I’d be a regular at both if they weren’t so far across town. My recommendation, whether you’re familiar with the delicacies of Trindad and Guyana or not, is to visit both Singh’s and Vindi’s on the same trip to compare and contrast similar dishes, since they’re so close to each other. Singh’s has the West Indian takes on Chinese food to set itself apart a bit, but both restaurants serve up the standard West Indian dishes. They are delicious and ridiculously cheap, for the quality and quantity of food you get. It has been a while since I went to Vindi’s and wrote the bulk of this review, so I think I’ve inspired myself to schlep out there for a return trip very soon. Maybe I’ll see you there… except I probably won’t recognize you, since hopefully you’ll be masked, and I definitely will be.

Singh’s Roti Shop

It’s not every day I get to try a whole new regional cuisine, but my first visit to Singh’s Roti Shop (https://www.facebook.com/SinghsRotiShop/) on Old Winter Garden Road, just east of Kirkman Road in West Orlando, was my first experience eating Trinidadian and Guyanese food. Trinidad and Tobago is a small dual-island country in the southern Caribbean Sea, just off the northern coast of South America, while Guyana is a slightly larger country in the north of the South American mainland, directly east of Venezuela. The two countries are relatively close, geographically, and both have similar demographics, with large Indo-Caribbean populations who influenced their culinary cultures.

I was so excited to make the schlep out to Singh’s for the first time, and I loved all the West Indian delicacies I brought home. The closest I’ve come to this cuisine is Jamaican food, which is one of my favorites. Many of the dishes at Singh’s were familiar to me from Jamaican menus, but the flavors here were somewhat different, and often spicier. But Singh’s food also had a strong Indian influence, and then they even had an entire Chinese menu with West Indian takes on familiar Chinese dishes.

The menu is not available online, so I scanned their paper menu. Right-click these menu images to open larger images in new tabs. When you enter Singh’s, you will see illuminated menu signs above the counter. I took pictures of those too, but I think it will be easier to read this printed menu.

This was the stew oxtail meal ($15.50). I can’t go to a restaurant with oxtail on the menu and not try it! It is one of my favorite meats, and one of my favorite dishes, period. Each culture prepares oxtail a little differently, but usually stewed or braised to break down all that wonderful collagen for some of the most tender, unctious meat. This oxtail was spicier than the Jamaican-style oxtail I’m used to, which is savory but also a little sweet, in a darker sauce. I loved this hotter, redder regional variation!

And this was the curry duck meal ($13.50). It was a very generous portion of bite-size pieces of duck stewed with potatoes and some chick peas in a thick, rich, very spicy curry sauce. I love duck almost as much as I love oxtail, so when I saw it on the menu, any thoughts of other meats went out the window. The duck was so tender, it was very easy to pull the bones right out. I wonder if it was cooked in a pressure cooker. This was probably a mild curry, but it was noticeably, pleasantly spicy by my standards.

Note on the above menu that main entree meals come with either roti or rice, and they way I see it, the place is called Singh’s Roti Shop, not Singh’s Rice Shop. I’m sure the rice is good, but you can also get rice almost anywhere, and roti is something you would probably love if you haven’t tried it before.

This is the dhal puri, one of two kinds of roti that you can choose with the main entree meals, or you can order it separately for $2.50. It is a huge, round, chewy, golden blanket of dough stuffed with seasoned ground chickpeas. If you unfold the whole thing or tear off a piece, be really careful to avoid causing a messy shower of fine chickpea crumbs. I made that mistake the first time I ever ordered a roti at the Jamaican restaurant Golden Krust, so I moved a little more gingerly as I tore into this one.

But because I am a bit of a rube, I didn’t even realize there was a whole other kind of roti, listed on the menu as the paratha buss up (also $2.50 if you get one a la carte, or included with a meal). The name comes from “buss up shut,” West Indian slang for a tattered, torn, “busted up” shirt. I think I accidentally ordered the dhal puri with the oxtail meal and the paratha buss up with the curry duck meal, which was a lucky break. If I had known what I was doing, I’d place the exact same order. The paratha buss up was even softer, fluffier, and chewier than the dhal puri, but equally gigantic when unfurled. But this was a little more buttery and less “earthy”-tasting than the dhal puri — more like a cross between really soft and fresh Indian naan and a puffy, fluffy Mexican flour tortilla. Here it is after my wife and I had torn it up a little — a buss up shot of a buss up shut.

The top item on the plate below is a fry bake ($2), a breakfast offering that is warm, soft, fluffy fried dough, much like Native American fry bread, and very similar to the batura I enjoyed so much at Rasa, an Indian restaurant I reviewed months before it closed last year. I would have also ordered some smoke herring to go with this, but breakfast hours were over, and they were all out! The fry bake would have also been delicious drizzled with honey and cinnamon for a dessert, like a giant sopapilla, but that would be a bastardization of this wonderful, simple treat. But to be fair, it’s so good and such a perfect blank canvas that it would go well with anything, savory, spicy, or sweet. The pastry below it is an aloo pie ($1.50), a soft fritter that is stuffed with spiced mashed potatoes. Both of these were a little greasy, but very tasty, with great textures — the lightest outer crispiness but so perfectly fluffy, soft, and warm on the inside. These were my wife’s two favorite things I brought home.

Here is a separate aloo pie split down the long way and stuffed with tender and spicy curry beef ($4.50). I chose the beef after getting oxtail and curry duck in the main meals, but the nice folks at Singh’s let you choose whichever meat you want! This could be a terrific option for visitors wanting to maximize the things they can sample on a single visit — a few aloo pies with different meats.

This is a doubles ($1.50), a popular Trinidadian street food dish of curried chickpeas called channa, served as a sandwich between two soft fried flatbreads called baras. Baras are direct descendants of South Indian vadas, another fried bread I tried for the first time at the Hindu Society of Central Florida’s cafeteria in Casselberry. The classic doubles costs only $1.50, and most people in front of me in line were ordering several of them. Indian food aficionados might have noticed this is similar to the South Indian dish chole poori, another lesson in how immigration and diaspora inspire regional recipes. As much as I love foods made out of chickpeas, particularly falafel and hummus, I’ve never been too keen on plain old chickpeas, because my mom used to buy cans of them, and I hated that texture and the slippery, goopy liquid they were packed in. These curried chickpeas in the doubles were so flavorful, and had a good soft texture too, like well-cooked beans.

I brought home a doubles with meat ($4.50) as well, choosing chicken as the meat option, so we could sample yet another meat too. That photo didn’t come out looking very appetizing, so I spared you, but I assure you the chicken was tasty!

Finally, this is a piece of macaroni pie ($3.50), very much like a baked macaroni and cheese casserole that uses long bucatini-like noodles. I wish it was a little cheesier and gooier, as I always do with baked mac and cheese dishes that crisp up the cheese too much on top and aren’t cheesy enough all the way through, but I’m glad I tried it too.

Singh’s Roti Shop doesn’t have a working website at the moment, but the address is 524 Old Winter Garden Road, Orlando, FL 32811. The phone number is 407.253.2900. You have to go! I just wish I had gone sooner, but hopefully I have demystified the basic menu options for first-timers. Once again, I recommend a new visitor try the doubles and the aloo pie because you can’t go wrong for $1.50 each. They would be perfect vegetarian snacks, and then you can order more with different meats for $4.50 each. And you absolutely can’t miss the two kinds of roti — the dhal puri and the paratha buss up — for $2.50 each.

Plenty of people around Orlando have probably been fans of Singh’s for years and years, but it is one of my favorite recent discoveries. I’m always a late bloomer, but better late than never!