La Tropicale Cafe & Catering

Sadly there wasn’t enough consistent business and the café is closed. They are maintaining the culinary school and catering.

Very happy to find just around the corner from my hotel (and lots of other hotels) and x from Walgreens. Lovely Café atmosphere — great people — delicious, fresh Chicken Quesadillas. Ginger Beer. Happiness. Perfect.

Driven by so many times, today I decided it was time to try, and I’m glad I did!
Greeted by a very friendly and knowledgeable young man (Felix) who was very good at explaining the various choices. My choice, the burrito was absolutely fantastic. And a jamacian pineapple soda that was very tasty. I had no room to try the various yummy sounding deserts, but I’ll be back soon to try again!

So I had tried them again this week and total change. My colleagues and I waited 25 mins before we even got offered a drink. Keep in mind there were only 3 other tables with people SMH

The food was wonderful and the service by Felix outstanding. The jerk chicken was tender and spicy, and the sides of cabbage, plantains, beans & rice all very flavorful. Large portions so plan on taking some home so you can try the piña colada bread pudding. Outstanding!

Fantastic service from Felix, delicious well seasoned food and Groupons!!! We will be back

This place has great service and food! They have us samples of the chilli and you can mix chillis together. I had vegetarian chilli over nachos which was amazing. Definitely ask for nachos on the side as server recommended to me. The nachos are homemade in house. So good! We also had cabbage, plaintains, and piña colada bread pudding — all very tasty. Can’t wait to try more on menu.

Just ate dinner at La Tropicale on Hwy 55. Wow just wow! The ingredients were fresh. The flavors popped. Had the crabcake, and as a crabcake snob this was outstanding. Had a bowl of cuban chili as an appetizer. Tremendous! The wait staff was attentive. I can’t rate La Tropicale highly enough.

Came to La Tropicale after a friend of mine raved about the ox tails and she was right! The food here is very generous, authentic, and delicious. The décor of the café is dated, but once you get your foods you tend to forget about sitting on hard chairs. The staff is very friendly and walks around filling drinks and chatting up customers about their day. I really enjoyed the food here and I will definitely come back to sample more of the menu; I have a feeling I won’t be disappointed.

We enjoyed the bright atmosphere, Caribbean music and the food and excellent service! My husband had the ox tails and I had the Island Crab Cake sandwich. Fried plantains were cooked to perfection and the house specialty of ginger sweet tea is addictive! We’re already planning our return visit for the rum barbecue ribs.

I found this place on groupon and got the jerk chicken and some ginger tea. The jerk chicken was absolutely fantastic — wonderful flavor (although there were a decent amount of bones). The sides of plantains, rice and cabbage were a perfect addition. I thought the ginger tea was too sweet so i wouldn’t recommend it — I’m going to go back and try their other drinks and desserts though.
I definitely recommend calling before you go because they have some random hours. I actually called and they said they were open and when I arrived they had closed because of some gigantic order. Pretty unusual for a place to just close but whatever — the food is still pretty amazing.

On a Saturday noon, I was starving to death. The first thing came on my mind is Latin American food.
Location: Unilocal location is wrong, people! So obviously, I didn’t get check in on my Unilocal.So basically, when you turned on the Hwy 55, this place is on the right side while you passing the first red light.
Food: if they have catering, you would end up have not a lot of choice. Cuz it happened to me today that they only had jerk chicken for lunch. Of course, I would go for it, as well as veggie patty. I would say both are delicious. But I doubt Americans would love it. The first bite of veggie patty, you probably felt like the dough is bland. But the inside is mixed well and roasted well too. The fried plantain is exactly I had in Latino countries. And the jerk chicken perfect amount of sauce with roasted well chicken. Perfect! I would come back to try their curried goat.
Service: the owner is a lady from Columbia! When I asked about her country, she gave me so many recommendations for visiting. And hell yeah, I will definitely go there because Latin America countries are so far the best place I have ever visited (so many natural sightseeing spot).
A solid 4.5 and 1 plus for service.
I sincerely hope this place can long live.

I’m glad this restaurant opened in South Durham. I’ve eaten here a few times. Being from Brooklyn, I missed having good Jamaican food around. The food and service in this place are great. The décor is kind of sparse and shabby, but the great service and tasty food definitely make up for it.

I had the oxtails with red beans, rice, cabbage and plantains. Very good portions. Very very good flavor. 100 rating as well #1 in my book. Pricing is good.

Authentic Caribbean food without the suspect sanitation. I enjoyed the Raggae Pasta. It’s a pasta dish with creamy, but spicy jerk chicken and bell peppers. I’ve also had their Jerk burger which is the best deal in town at only $ 5.95. Clean, inviting, and simple.

Great food and service! I ordered the jerk chicken and hubby ordered the boneless jerk chicken. Both were super flavorful and came with delicious sweet plantains, moist beans and rice. The cost was very reasonable given the big portions. The staff was very friendly. They have a cooking school as well which interests me!

This place used to be a KFC years ago, but now its a restaurant/​catering company/​culinary school. They have typical Caribbean fair and even some unique dishes like jerk pasta, jerk wraps, craft burgers etc. I was dying for some good jerk chicken so went here for lunch and got the jerk chicken island platter with cabbage and beans and rice and I threw in a beef patty for good measure. The beef patty was legit nothing spectacular but even better with their house hot sauce, which is a habanero/​scotch bonnet based thick sauce with great flavor. The jerk chicken was on point and the platter had so much food. The hot sauce pairs with the chicken well and the cabbage and rice and beans were perfect; the plantains were cooked perfectly and tasted great. The service was excellent, everyone was extremely friendly and good at explaining menu items, the owner even came out to say hey and make sure the food was ok. I would absolutely recommend this place if u like Jamaican or Caribbean food.

Today I decided to take advantage of being able to date my wife. We went to LA tropical Café and Catering. Must I say the oxtails were great. If you’re looking to have lunch in a warm welcoming atmosphere with great food, then I recommend LA tropical. Make sure you take your appetite because they give you plenty of food.

Very nice atmosphere, Jerk chicken wrap was spicy and good, but found too many bones. Ginger tea was yummy! Chicken Quesadilla good, but could have been more spicy.