Jamaican Dutchy

My parents are some of the most adventurous 60 year old Asians you’ll find — when it comes to food! They love love love trying new cuisines and will oftentimes take the subway into the city to meet me for lunch, where they’ll ALWAYS request a new food cart.
This time around, I took them to the Jamaican Dutchy and had the small sizes of oxtail, jerk chicken, and goat. All superb. I’d go with the Large next time though bc the price difference is minimal and the portion difference substantial! Delish!

Utterly horrible jerk chicken. How can people rave about this truck when it is absolute burnt, dry, piss poor flavored, disgrace to Jamaica.
I have eaten at a myriad of «jerk spots» throughout the 5 boros of NYC and this is by far the worst of the worst. The chicken was terribly dry and the sauce they put on it is not even jerk sauce, it’s some green spicy sauce that tastes of vinegar and pepper seeds.
I count my lucky stars that I only spent $ 5 here and didn’t waste any more of my money. Where is that Jamaican pride?
And the big dude wiping his sweaty head with a rag just before putting peoples food in the bags, uhm… that’s GROSS dude!!!

The price is great, especially considering the area. The quality of the food is top notch and tastes as if it came straight from your mom’s kitchen. I love the chicken stew. The line can be long at times. It moves steadily, but at a slower pace than many may be willing to wait. Pack some patience as they are cooking you a meal; not scooping mass-​produced homogenous dishes from a buffet table.

The Jamaican Dutchy visited the Bronx during U.N. counsel meeting when the streets were closed, and it was the best lunch of my current career (mind you we get catering almost daily).
First off, the truck is awesome, it has a TV on both sides and it blasts Bob Marley.
The chef is also very nice and talkative, he makes suggestions and is very understanding to my needs (I need ridiculously spicy, add more jerk sauce).
I ended up having the Curry Goat and the Jerk Chicken wrap.
The goat meal was enough to feed two people (and it wasn’t just rice like some other places!)
Had my stomach allowed it, I would have gone back to order a third item, because the food is exceptional.
I wish he would come back =(

The Jamaican Dutchy truck is around the corner from my office. It’s definitely a great lunch deal! For under 10 bucks you can get your choice of meat; Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Oxtail, Beef.etc.
I love it, if only it was less greasy and healthy I would be eating at this place quite often. I recommend the Ox Tail! Jamaican Jerk Chix was super spicy, but still tasty if you can handle the heat!

I’ve been coming back to this place every Thursday for the past 6 weeks. Its the only day that I come here. I always order the same thing. Mini Oxtail and a Red Pea soup. I’ve been told by someone else that they always end up getting gipped with a vegetarian version of this soup.
Its never happened to me. Every time I order the deliciously hearty, salty, coconuty, beefy red pea soup with dumplings there is always a hefty hunk of beef in it and dumplings. So good. I took off a star because two out of the 6 weeks they ended up not going to their usual Thursday spot and I couldn’t order it.

When I heard there was a Jamaican food truck in Midtown, I thought I may have heard incorrectly. So I took the walk one day to find out that not only was this truck real, but it was authentic. There’s also a big plasma TV hanging on the truck that shows Jamaican music video’s and highlights of Usain Bolt.
Now being Jamaican, I’m super critical on any Jamaican food I eat. That being said, this food is pretty good. I’ve gotten the oxtail and stew chicken from here many times and both are good. Definitely not White Plains road or Brooklyn good, but pretty good none the less. Everything is authentically made, but it just isn’t that perfection that a Jamaican knows the second it hits your tongue.
I respect the fact that these guys have been plugging away for years and are doing well. Whenever I’m in this area of midtown, I make it a point to stop here and grab a plate.

Came here on Wednesday and was looking forward to the Pepper steak… they ran out of it around 12:45ish.
So i took the oxtail instead and was expecting ti to be excellent like it always is. It wasn’t.
Sauce was really REALLY salty and so was the oxtail. Also the oxtail was tough and tasted dried out, like it had been sitting overnight. I think they served us leftovers, since it was raining the day before and business was probably slow.
Not cool. My coworker also got the oxtail and said the same thing «Salty and bad oxtail».

A spicy addition to the dull, barren Midtown East foodscape. Pretty much a weekly trip and they have a great truck where you can watch classic Bob Marley tracks while waiting for your choice of authentic Jamaican grub.
My go-​to is the classic Jerk chicken, which can vary in spice levels depending on the days, but is always quite spicy at the minimum. What’s so great about the jerk here is that the dry rub gives it the heat, as opposed to just grilled chicken doused in a separate jerk sauce on top (a la Jerk Pan). The small is the best size for this one, as it is the lightest out of the main options and you can sub out the rice and peas in favor of more steamed cabbage & carrots if you like.
If you don’t mind the inevitable post-​lunch itis, the stewed chicken is also excellent, as are the curry goat and chicken. The oxtails are good, but pricey at $ 10 for a small (the mini meal wouldn’t be enough considering the lack of meat in oxtails as is).
Very lucky to have the Dutchy around every weekday on 43^rd & 3^rd and I hope that he stays for as long as possible. I know I’ll do my part to keep the business up.

The chicken and beef patties are oily… as you can tell from the oil stains in the brown paper bags its provided in. but they are yummy. And they’re cheaper than the standard fare you get from Golden Krust.
I forgot to mention the curry chicken is boneless. I finally was able to try the stewed chicken today and its also boneless meat. The mini platter is VERY VERY FILLING. I’m so full, and i have the wicked food coma. The spices in the sauce and chicken are perfection and the chicken was moist.
I love waiting on line for this truck. They have a tv of reggae performances, and you hear more reggae music inside the truck. Today, i heard a Shaggy song, and it brought back memories of when i was in Jamaica 2 summers ago and attended the Summer Reggae festival where Usher and Shaggy performed. I miss the Caribbean. Luckily I don’t have to travel far to eat Jamaican food since this truck is only a few blocks away from my office.

Matt: I had rehearsal yesterday for a reading I’m working on about superheroes (If I told you anything more, it would compromise my secret identity, and I’d have to kill you.), which let out about three hours earlier than expected. I was left with nothing to do and a hunger pang to boot. After a short walk around midtown weighing my options, I hung my head in shame and headed home to Harlem. Almost at my doorstep, I looked up and saw my saving grace, The Jamaican Dutchy. My prayers were answered by an animated Jamaican man holding a smoking-​hot plate of chicken standing next to a palm tree ready to come to my rescue.
Yesterday was National Homemade Soup Day, and because I had absolutely no desire to make anything myself, I split the difference between homemade and canned, and started with the Oxtail Stew, The Jamaican Dutchy’s weekend soup special. This was my first experience with oxtail. It had a subtle hint of gaminess and a great meaty texture, the perfect building block for the rest of the root vegetables and Jamaican flavors. I accidentally bit into one of the allspice berries which I’m guessing is there only to flavor everything else around it, not to actually eat, as bay leaves are used in other dishes. The taro was the hero here, having a beautifully purple aesthetic hue.
The main meals have three sizes: Mini, Small, and Large. I went with the Mini Jerk Chicken since I had just ordered the Oxtail Stew, and let me tell you that it is anything but Mini. I can’t even imagine how Giant the large must be! (See what I did there?) The chicken itself was moist, and the skin was quite spicy (Just right for me but for the feint of heart and tongue, beware!), served over a bed of steamed cabbage and «rice & peas,» better known to us as «rice & beans.» The pigeon peas used are similar to kidney beans.
I washed it all down with sorrel juice, a traditional winter drink in Jamaica especially around the holidays, which to my taste-​buds had both a gingery bite and a tart blend of cranberry and pomegranate juice.
Dear Jamaican Dutchy, thanks for flying/​driving all over New York City saving the day! For location information and more, follow them on Twitter at @JamaicanDutchy. Till the next time we need a hero…
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I finally made it to the The Jamaican Dutchy food truck. Known for its authentic Jamaican cuisine.
I ended up ordering the Stew Chicken — tender fried chicken smothered in tasty brown sauce of spices and carrots. YUM! A small meal portion (which is still a pretty healthy portion, especially for lunch) — will run you $ 8.
I will definitely be back.
Tip:
Call 718−737−3836 to figure out where the truck is.
Menu:
Web Site:

It was a relief for me to find this guy again at 43^rd and 3^rd. When they booted him out from his original location, it was a sad day for me. I went for months without my jamaican fix, until I found him again.
This is how jamaican food should be done. His jerk chicken is spot on and fiery, the stew chicken falls off the bone, the curry goat is strong… and the patties… don’t get me started on the patties. The only thing is the rice and peas can be a little dry, but just ask him to put some stew sauce on it and you’ll be good to go. Let him add the hot sauce too if you like some extra heat.

Food was fine, nothing special. Got the small oxtail platter and a meat patty. There was a lot of rice and beans, 2 plantain slices, and some oxtail. Meat patty was a little dry on the outside and there was not that much meat on the inside. $ 12 fills you up but mostly due to the carbohydrates and not the oxtail. Try it if you are craving Jamaican food. I got mine at the truck so I didn’t go into the restaurant.

I came here at about 3 pm for a late lunch. I was walking toward Chipotle and I spotted this truck on Broadway and 21 in the Flatiron by my work.
I decided to support a food truck and add some spice to my life since I had some pretty amazing jerk chicken when I visited Jamaica.
I ordered a large jerk chicken meal for $ 11. The portion was pretty huge. Plenty of rice and beans. I enjoyed the rice and beans, and it’s definitely filling.
The chicken didn’t seem that fresh — I guess they keep them in steam trays and serve them to you. The flavor was pretty spot on. Very flavorful, but the skin and pieces were definitely blackened and kinda dry. The sauce on top was very spicy — just the way I like it. I wished the chicken was a little less bony.
It also came with a small side of cabbage salad and a slice of fried plantain.
It was alright, perhaps if I came here earlier the food would be better. I can imagine if it came straight off the grill the food would be amazing.

I wanted to like this place, but alas I can not tell a lie.
The food was so greasy red-​orange grease seeped out the container into the bag. It was a veritable pool of grease.
The rice also had tiny bones in it (I imagine from the chicken) but it was annoying, time-​consuming, and potentially dangerous.
The rice & peas were much better than the Jerk.

There are a few things that I assess for street food…
quantity and tastiness? I ordered a small jerk chicken platter and it was enough for 2 people with small appetites or 1 person with big appetite. Chicken was moist and flavorful but didn’t wow me. Not the best or the worst jerk chicken. It was fine. I was really disappointed with ONE slice of plantain!!! Lots of rice but it was a bit too dry and firm in texture for me. Few pieces of forgettable lettuce.
Price? Too expensive at $ 8 for small platter. You can get full from the other numerous carts for $ 5 – 6.
Quick service? Organized. One short line for ordering and the other to pick up food. About 10 – 15 minutes total at lunch on a weekday.
Overall, not bad but not sure if I would return unless I really wanted jerk chicken.

Yes I am more than a fan!
I found this place through my blackberry Unilocal* app. I searched for nearby food, and this place came up. Once I saw «Jamaican» Dutchy, I knew I had, had, had to try the jerk chicken here. Looked up their menu on my phone before I went here, so I knew exactly what to ask for and their prices. I got Jerk Chicken with White Rice, Plantains, and steamed vegetables + a Snapple (apple flavor), which all cost $ 10.50.
Everything was fresh. Rice was fresh and soft. The jerk chicken was great and flavored great. It had the right amount of spiciness. It definitely was not dry like some other Jerk Chicken I have tasted from other places, which I really appreciated a lot.
Plus they have a flat screen on the cart. I mean c’mon, what carts you know have a flat screen? I wish I could have tried the curry chicken, but they did not have no more when I came there, which is around 4:30pm. So I want to come back early next time so I can get some. I recommend this place.

These guys are like legends in the New York street meat scene (may I never type that sentence again). They’ve been covered to death by the media and food bloggers and even after going at it for years, still maintain sufficient buzz — enough at least to get them into the Vendy Awards for several years in a row.
They’ve done well enough for themselves that they were able to install a flat screen TV, used for marketing purposes — or in some cases — Dance Hall music videos featuring large women shaking their rears in a suggestive manner. Hey, anything to get a rouse of tourists and office workers. And hell, who doesn’t like to listen to Sean Kingston or Elephant Man blasted at at 11:45 in the morning?
Even more laudably, they’ve launched a ‘feeding program’, in which they donate food on a daily basis to folks in need. I wonder if that includes office grunts that got their bonuses cut this year.
Since i’m a major glutton for food trends, with a weakness for West Indian food, I had to check it out, and was mildly disappointed. The jerk chicken was nicely spiced, but a little on the dry side. Nothing like the moist, smokey and lively jerk chicken from Veronica’s in FiDi. An immense portion of rice and beans was also on the dry/​bland side, and went mostly uneaten.
Not only am I a trendwhore, but i’m also a glutton for punishment as well. Refusing to believe that such a critically acclaimed cart could miss my expectations, I went 3 additional times, ordering the same thing. Each order flirted with a 2.5 star average, and left me in too much of a carbohydrate induced stupor to bother with writing a review.
Like the Alex Rodriguez’s or Sarah Palin’s of their time, Jamaican Dutchy may have been cursed by the media hype. The bar has been set higher than a Rastafarian on a 12 hour ganja bender, and they just missed the mark in my opinion.
2.5 stars for the food, and an additional .5 for their charitable acts and booty shaking Dance Hall music videos.
More Jamaican Dutchy Coverage:

I expected a bit larger of a crowd since Jamaican Dutchy had recently been nominated for a Vendy, but there was absolutely no wait on my lucky day. The cart was not carrying oxtail on this day though, nor escovitch chicken.
The interior of this medium-​sized cart is hard to peer into, but it seems to be the cleanest in the city, immaculately kept. An electronic ticker above calls out to customers nearby in Times Square, although I suspect that the bulk of the Dutchy’s clientele comes from office towers and not tourist buses.
Most meals come in mini, small, and large sizes. Our large jerk chicken meal ($ 11) consisted of four pieces of the bird, a few fried plantains, and a mountain of rice. I could have done with the rice, and the plantains were unfortunately closer to liquid form than solid, but the chicken was very good.
The jerk sauce they use here is phenomenal, but you can tell it is not slow-​cooked for a long time. We can give them a pass on this for the sole reason that they are a food cart, but they won’t be giving Peppa’s a run for their money anytime soon.
The second dish was selected since it was the daily special, but turned out to be mediocre at best. The pepper steak ($ 9, small meal) was dry and lifeless, filled again mostly by rice and a lot of onions.
I have a feeling this cart could be hit or miss sometimes, but sticking with the jerk is probably a safe enough option. Two ladies behind me were destroyed by the news of no oxtail, so it must be made especially well too