876 cafe

Being from caribbean descent , I have been forced fortunate to eat a lot of west indian cuisine. With all of this wealth of West indian cuisine knowledge, you can imagine my excitement when I was asked to come taste the food at a relatively new caribbean restaurant off of Connecticut Ave in DC, I was more than happy to lend my expert taste buds.

876 cafe is a 8 month old, quint, relaxed restaurant owned by a brother and sister duo. The name 876 comes from the area code of their native, Jamaica which encouraged the motto. "876Cafe is a dial into Jamaica, sharing a piece of Jamaica with DC with the food and the music."  

Co-owner Moreen

Chef and co-owner Michael

First up for our tasting pleasure, was a drink called the Rastea, which is there version of a long island ice tea and was pretty good. It reminds me of the rum punch my mom makes. The rum flavor was very prevalent but didn't over power the spiced tea flavor. 

The Rastea

Cheers!!!

 Next up, was some delectable little treats known as Curry Egg rolls. Now I have consumed many an Egg roll but never one containing curry and this was a very pleasant surprise. The egg roll is a combination of chicken, chick peas, cabbage and an ever so slightly spiced, curry sauce. It reminded me of a Samosa. As if that wasn't enough flavor, these delectable rolls are served with a tangy pineapple chutney for dipping. The chutney, consisting of pineapple, onions, carrots and a few other ingredient, paired very well with the flavors in the egg rolls. 

Now on to my favorite dish of the night,  Jerk chicken wraps. I make jerk, eat jerk, I am a jerk,  and will always have a great love for Jerk, when it is done right. This my friends, is jerk chicken done RIGHT. I believe, to have a great jerk chicken, two thing are very important, it must be slight charred (to get that smokey wood flavor) and it must be spiced well with jerk seasoning. The chicken in these wraps had those two elements down and more. The sauce inside of the wrap had a spicy kick to it which I loved and melded perfectly with the jerk seasoning. I could seriously see my self eating this for lunch every day. It was that good. 

The last (but certainly not least) item that was offered for us to try, was the restaurants signature fruit punch. So, when I tell that this punch is so good, I mean really, it was so good. I could tastes hints of mango and maybe passion fruit, which made it like no other fruit punch I have tasted before. They do make a rum punch using this fruit punch and I can only imagine how many people that has gotten in trouble from it. I could just imagine being so infatuated with the flavors of the drink and not really paying attention to the alcohol content, that I down about 5 and end up running buck wild in the streets of DC with no shoes on. Not cool.

 All in all, I had a great time at this restaurant. From what I tasted of the menu, word of this place should get around quickly and soon there will be line waiting to get in. The only thing I wish, was that the tasting wasn't in such a "tasting" format and we actually got to see the food plated all prettyful. I also wish we got to try more food, which I could have taken upon myself to do, but I have grounded myself for eating at 5 different restaurants  this past weekend (don't judge me) 

The tasting attendees

My self in the Red, outfit post coming soon
Morgan from DCfunemployment in the black and white
My blogger twin Waverly peaking from the corner
Lisha who writes for Girl Meets Food, in the yellow
Jess and Steph from Something to Nosh on, the lovely ladies on the left of Lisha