Caribbean Flavah — Restaurant in Hamilton

review date: november 9, 2021, february 10, 2022. customer service date: november 9, 2021, feb 10/22.

i discovered caribbean flavah (CF) by chance as i was driving thru the area. i checked out their website and reviews and decided to make a move on their menu. CF has been in business now for 6 years, and they are located on main st west near the corner of dalewood ave. there is plenty of free parking beside the store in a parking lot.

i phoned-in and at first, was put off that the store doesn't accept phone-in orders, but convinced the store person that i wasn't going to flake. the reason i phone in especially with caribbean places is to ensure desired times are available, the store is actually open, and for me to save time with driving 15 min's away, and waiting in-store for food prep, given this is not fast food.

once i arrived at the store, george explained why they avoid phone-in's because they have had people in the past not come in to pay after phoning in an order. while this is the 1st place that i've dealt with such procedure, i understand and respect their viewpoint.

george recommends for phone-in's to use their online ordering menu instead. CF takes cash or debit for payments. also, to CF's credit, there is little wait time for walk-in's...food is ready to be put together/collected as ordered and you can be out the door in 5 minutes or less.

items ordered: 2 beef patties, 1 jerk chicken roti and 1 large jerk pork with rice and beans/coleslaw.

jerk chicken roti: decent size and weight relative to price ($10 plus tax). comes with potatoes, a curry sauce and chickpeas within the roti. roti overall was delicious, would order such again.

2 beef patties: a bit higher in price ($2.99 each + tax) compared to other places i frequent. quality was ok. not bad, but not great. patties were listed on the in-store and flyer menu, but not online.

1 large jerk pork with rice, peas/coleslaw: ($12.95) quality of contents were good. however the large size would be a regular size at other caribbean restaurants. meat contents were good but not a serving size consistent with a large box; so 1 star knocked off for that.

CF does have lunch specials (mon -through- fri, 11a-3p) which at the time of writing this review, are $7.95 plus tax, and from what i saw with other customers coming into the store, looked like a better value than the large size dinner boxes.

other positives: CF is a 7-day operation. many other caribbean food places are open between 3-6 days (covid still in effect at time of this review)

2nd review (February 10, 2022) i ordered 3 items, a jerk chicken roti, chicken curry roti, and a large chicken stew. all-in $40.25 after tax.

large jerk chicken stew: rice and chicken cooked well, however small portions of chicken, and not much stew flavor. overall overpriced for $14 relative to size.

chicken curry and jerk chicken rotis: both have excellent roti shell, not much gravy or neat contents inside,lots of potato and chickpeas. decent sized portion for $11.

drawbacks: -lunch special cannot be ordered online. -pickup time settings cannot be changed from 20 minutes online. -store discourages phone-in orders, unless you have an established history of business with the store. -large sized rice meal pricing and content amounts do not match up. not much meat, and portion size would be a medium box at other competitors. -roti meals do not come with much meat compared to other competitors.

bottom line: i would return to CF only if i was in the area, and only for the roti offerings. aside from that, there are much better competitors for patties, rice and roti meals in the city. i would recommend others to try CF and other places, and draw their own...

The amount of ackee and saltfish I got for what I paid in what is a supposed to be the large size was pathetic. I got less than a small handful of ackee and saltfish for over 25 dollars. They just fill the whole container with rice so it feels heavy when you get it. But it's all mostly rice and worst yet it was NOT hot or fresh it was dry and not at all even slightly flavourful. The "Jerk" chicken could barely be called jerk chicken there was absolutely zero jerk flavour or aroma, no spice no flavour no nothing. It had some of the colour there and was not undercooked but grocery store basics roasted chickens have more seasoning and are better cooked than this sad excuse for jerk chicken so that's a sign that this place have obviously declined in quality. There nothing worse than spending money on unsatisfactory food especially in this day and time when ordering in at all is a luxury. I have not ordered Jamaican food for years and was very excited to taste those flavours again and this was very disappointing. I do not feel I treated myself with this dry shitty rice and roasted chicken that had nothing jerk about it except the colour. I feel like I messed up and should have not wasted my money on this. Learn how to make real Jerk chicken or take the word "flavah"...

I ordered a small jerk chicken meal, a small fried chicken meal, a beef patty and fried plantains through uber eats today. I understand that I will pay a premium when using this service rather than picking it up myself however this was still over priced and not worth it. My entire order was crammed into a small bag which resulted in my order being smooshed. Because the bag was plastic everything was soggy by the time it got to me, the napkins and food containers were actually wet. Soggy fried or jerk chicken is off putting. I understand that part of the issue is that uber eats took way too long to deliver the food, however we have gotten orders late before but they were packaged better so reheating was not too big of an issue nor was my food crushed. The food itself was nothing special and generally tasted stale, as though it had been sitting under heat lamps all day, further somehow my rice was cold while the...