Negril - Silver Spring

For months I've been hearing about a Jamaican restaurant in Silver Spring called Negril, usually really good things about their jerk chicken sandwich and the homemade fruit punch. So one evening, as I was heading home, starving and knowing there nothing edible in the fridge, I headed to Negril. It's hard to miss with its large yellow sign with red letters.

It's definitely a carry out sort of place, even though there are a couple of tables in the room where you order the food at a counter, and a room on the side with many more tables - I don't think they have wait staff service though. So I headed up to the person at the counter and asked for a recommendation as I had never been there. He said that the beef patties or the coco bread would be good as appetizers and if I wanted something more filling, the jerk chicken sandwich, curried chicken, or goat roti are popular. So, being famished, I ordered the beef patty, coco bread, and curried chicken to go (obviously, my eyes were bigger than my stomach). Service was pretty quick, I received my food in about 5 minutes, during which I looked around the place and noticed that the beef patties were being sold in frozen packs, to be microwaved at home. Hmmmm...I don't know how I feel about that.

Once I received the food, I rushed home and took at bite of the beef patty. It wasn't magnificent, but it wasn't awful - the crust was flaky and the beef filling was pasty but had enough seasoning to be not gross or boring. The coco bread was DELISH, it's soft and moist and fluffy and sweet and buttery...mmmmmmmm. I would have it for breakfast with butter and coffee...maybe a dab of good strawberry preserves. Drool. Uh, where was I? Right, moving on to the curried chicken, um...it was disappointing. I grew up with really good chicken curry from India, so I expected lots of spices and heat. Well, spices and heat, I definitely didn't get. Instead I got mediocre chicken with mediocre sauce with a side of very dry rice and beans and a heaping mound of really blah steamed cabbage. Note to self: when getting an entree, always choose the salad over cabbage.

Despite the disappointment, I was willing to give it a second try because I wanted to like it. I really wanted to like it. This time I went for the jerk chicken sandwich - it can't get any more Jamaican than that, right? Then as a last minute impulse, I ordered the fish cakes appetizer also. Oh man, I was even more disappointed than before. The fish cakes - there are 3 huge puffs of them - were so gross, it didn't taste like fish and certainly didn't look like fish, it was like a sticky sponge. I took a bite and then was forced by my brain to throw them out. Even doused in the strange sweet sauce and I tried hot sauce also, it was inedible. EW. As I prepared to bite into the jerk sandwich I said a silent prayer that it would be good. It was ok, but I didn't know what was Jamaican or jerk about it. It tasted like a pulled chicken sandwich with a honey mustard and lettuce. My understanding was that jerk seasoning is hot and spicy and generally the chicken is grilled or smoked...I don't think it met any of those requirements. The best thing about it was the coco bread.

Would I go back to Negril? Probably not. For the mediocre entrees, it's way overpriced - I think I paid $11 for the lame curried chicken. The sandwich though, is a really good deal if you're not really looking for a jerk chicken sandwich at about $4. Oh no, I'm lying. I would go back to get the coco bread but probably not anything else. If you like delicious bread, I suggest you try it for sure! Tasty tasty!

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www.negrileats.com

Spring Garden

I've been sick for almost a week and a half. What a bore, I say (try saying it with a British accent, Professor McGonagall style). I haven't stepped out of my apartment unless absolutely necessary, and feeding myself was easy enough with foodler.com at my fingertips. One of my favorite places to order from is Spring Garden in the strip mall at 16th St and Spring St in Silver Spring. They're consistently fast at delivery and their food is mostly decent.

I always get soup, and my favorite is sweet and sour - good flavor and lots of vegetables and tofu. The wonton soup is alright, but the broth is a bit bland. My second favorite soup is the egg drop soup - I know, it's so boring, but I love the tissue paper thin sheets of eggs floating about the gently viscous soup. I usually add a bit of soy sauce and just a touch of sesame oil to it and it makes a pretty good soup about 10 times better. Now, I ordered their seafood soup as an experiment one day, and it was blech, gross, ew. It had quite a bit of shrimp, scallops, imitation crab meat, and calamari, as well as water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, carrots, and celery. But the broth was so boring and no matter what kind of condiments I added to it, I couldn't make myself eat the damned thing.

Their lo mein is pretty good - I have tried their beef, chicken, and shrimp lo mein, and I think shrimp is the best. Overall good seasoning, not too oily and the noodles have a good texture. Hunan chicken's pretty good also - lots of veggies and chicken doesn't taste as fake as some other Chinese delivery places. I don't know if you know what I mean, sometimes the chicken seems synthetic in texture and flavor - same goes for beef. I wish the hunan chicken was a bit more spicy, but that can be amended with some red chili oil or sriracha. My favorite thing about their food is that their sauces don't have the thick, goopy texture of sauces that most Chinese delivery places have - one can almost convince oneself to believe that they don't come in a gigantic tub labeled "brown sauce."

They also have sushi on the menu, so I decided to try it. After browsing through a bunch of items that you can find everywhere, my eyes stopped at crazy roll. It was salmon, avocado, and cucumber rolled in nori and rice, tempura battered and fried, then cut into 8 pieces, and sprinkled with chopped scallions and tobiko. It looked pretty good, but it didn't taste so good. Actually, it was pretty nasty. It was squishy and mushy in texture and there was no flavor - the salmon was pretty flavorless, and the rice was too soft. Even after being dunked in way too much soy sauce it was bland. After 2 pieces, I was forced to throw it out. It's called crazy roll for a reason, you have to be crazy to eat it!!

The almond cookies that I got for dessert was quite good. Nice and crispy but not hard, and you can definitely taste the almonds. I love that it's not that sweet - it goes perfectly with a cup of coffee. There are 4 cookies in an order and out of tonight's order, it was my favorite item.

If you're ever looking for food to be delivered, check out foodler.com. And if you're looking for Chinese food in Silver Spring, definitely give Spring Garden a try, but stay away from crazy roll. Seriously. Do try the lo mein and the almond cookies. Tasty tasty!!

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www.foodler.com/MD/Silver-Spring/Chinese/Spring-Garden/1507.html