A Taste of Jamaica

By Pharoh Martin

The intersection of Georgia Avenue and New Hampshire Avenue at mid-day is alive with activity and congestive noise. Construction, traffic and a blur of pedestrians are the constant sight while the sun is up. Orange barricades on New Hampshire section off newly laid medians. On one side of the orange divide is the bustling Georgia Avenue/Petworth Metro Station, and on the opposite end stands a two-story Jamaican restaurant that claims to be the “home of the famous jerk chicken.”    

Sweet Mango Cafe sits under the shadow of a hulking half-finished Park Place condominium complex at 3701 New Hampshire Ave. N.W. Its support for political candidates is on full display in the form of banners and signs embedded in the restaurant’s front lawn and taped to the its windows. 

The signage showing support for incumbent Ward 4 Councilwoman Muriel Bowser, independent Council-at-Large candidate Michael Brown and presidential candidate Barack Obama is interrupted by a single, undecipherable graffiti tag that somebody wrote on the wall with a black felt tip marker. 

I am met with the smell of gasoline coming from an outside generator attached to the building when I walk inside the restaurant. About six people are sitting inside the place. A wide-screen television is mounted on the wall. It is tuned to the Weather Channel. The screen shows a newscaster pointing on a map toward a green spiral heading toward Louisiana. The news coverage is reporting about Hurricane Gustav. The sound is muted. Nobody is paying attention.

Inside, the restaurant seems spacious and inviting. Everybody is either waiting for their food or relaxing after finishing their plates. 

One disgruntled gentleman is impatient. He screams that he doesn’t want to wait for his order to be prepared. The order taker calms him down by asking another customer, who is grabbing an order off the counter, if he’d be willing trade his ready order with the disgruntled man because they ordered the same thing. He obliges. The gentleman is calm now.

The lady at the counter asks me if I’m ready to order.

I look at the menu, which is distinctly Jamaican and moderately priced. Laid out before my eyes is a listing of chicken, beef and goat dishes that are curried, jerked or stewed. The most expensive menu item is a curry goat and oxtail combination for $13.20. 

I am ready. I order a chicken patty. The total is $1.71.

Four other workers behind the woman at the couner are doing various duties — cleaning, cooking, preparing and calling out order numbers. Everybody behind the counter has their heads covered, but not in a uniform way. With the exception of the order taker, who’s wearing a black sweater cap, everybody else has on baseball caps  — the type that you would pick up at gas stations and family reunions.

I receive my chicken patty, and it is flavorful. I am able to taste the moist jerk chicken inside the flaky crust. It’s not hard as patties bought on Georgia Avenue can sometimes be.

Bob Marley pictures adorn the walls, as does other Jamaican art. There’s a glass display of cakes and bottled drinks — chocolate and carrot cakes, Red Bull, assorted fruit juices and a carib juice called Grand Slam stud tonic.

The original six people who were there when I entered have dwindled and expanded over the next 20 minutes.

A small group of young males enter through the front door joking with each other in their distinct slang-heavy Washingtonian accents.

A bus driver enters. Customers with Caribbean accents sprinkle in as well. They are greeted by name and exchange pleasantries with the staff. 

The sound from the television is turned on suddenly. All eyes move to the screen. It shows a reporter battling the  hurricane’s wind. She is attempting to hold her ground in the nasty storm while giving the details of what’s going on around her. 

The conversations are indistinguishable. The bevy of District dialects and Caribbean accents are muffled by the sounds of the television and hum of the ceiling fans overhead. 

Because this restaurant sits across from a metro station it seems to be a meet-up spot for Metro employee on lunch breaks. Another Metro operator steps in. He greets the operator already seated and asks her if she’s waiting on a bus. 

“No,” she responds before giggling. “I’m done.”

I look down and see nothing but crumbs staring back at me from atop the brown paper bag that carried the chicken patty. I realize that I’m done, too.