Kadel's

Sorry that it's taken me so long to report -- I've been
away for a week:

I love Kadel's. Excellent caribbean soul food takeout,
fish and fowl only (at least, no beef). I especially
love the barbequed chicken which comes in a thick red
sauce that I can't get enough of (can someone identify
the ingredients?). Entrees come with two sides (rice
and beans, collard greens, plantains, macaroni and
cheese, black-eyed peas, etc.), and are cheap, cheap,
cheap. It's mainly a takeout place, although at night
they set up tables, and you can sit at the window on a
porch swing and gaze out at the hospital. Very
peaceful.

Unfortunately, for all my rhapsodizing, my boyfriend
(we live together and thus share most all meals
together) refuses to eat there because the food is too
rich for him. So I rarely have the opportunity to
indulge. And, alas, although I love Fort Greene,
circumstances conspire to prevent me from remaining
there for long. I would absolutely recommend Kadel's
to anyone in the neighborhood. I haven't tried most of
their dishes, but what I have had has been excellent.

If only I had infinite appetite and could eat dinner
twice in one night (once at Kadel's and then later at
with Tim).

Rachelhope

In the interests of science I have tried a few more
dishes. Here are the results:

Chicken Tamale: Good corn, but stuffed with chicken on
the bone!!! little pieces of bone and cartilidge were
abundant, very unpleasant. In my experience, the only
good tamale is a homemade one eaten in Mexico. It's a
dish, I think, which fails to translate
internationally.

Home fries: very yummy, although some undercooked
potatoes (Last night may have been an off-night)

Garlic-Mashed Potatoes: no good, strange tasting butter
used. Stick with the more traditional caribbean
dishes.

Black-eyed peas: good, flavored-strongly with chervil??
very unusual

potato-salad: too mayonaissey for my tastes but spicey
flavored with hot pepper, a spin on the classic
supermarket deli counter potato salad.

I stick to my first recommendation: Barbequed chicken,
the best dish I've had there.

Also, in addition to fish and fowl, goat is served.

Rachelhope

Rachel, thanks for the report...Kdell's has long
been on my check-up list. But as for the tamales,
you've got to remember that while Mexican ones
are
great, there are myriad other styles of tamales
all over the Western Hemisphere. They're a
Pre-Columbian dish, made for millenia, and so
it's
impossible to say which culture makes the "real"
ones.
Different countries, regions, and cities (even
neighborhoods!) have their variations.
For example, Columbian and Cuban tamales often
contain the chicken bones you complained about,
and while it's true that the bones make the
things trickier to eat, it does make the chicken
meat more flavorful

Hmm...I'm not sure about the trade-off (taste for
convenience) of leaving chicken meat on the bone, but I
noticed they do this with duck in Chinatown as well. On
New Year's Day, I went to Tai Tung Rice Shoppe (277
Canal Street, between Centre and Lafayette) and ordered
the duck over rice. True, the duck was very flavorful,
but I ended up with a little heap of bones alongside -
and there aren't even any ashtrays on the tables
anymore to put the bones in.

"They're a Pre-Columbian dish, made for millenia"

well...maybe they wern't made for MILLENIA (I mean, how can we know for sure...like tamale FOSSILS or something???), but at least for centuries

--Jim, back from the desert, 5000 feet lower, and thinking more clearly