Turtle Bay claim they are the ‘best Caribbean’, so I took a trip with my friends Maria and Thomas to find out what it’s really all about. I recommend you play this in the background of reading this post for the full experience.
This was actually my second visit to Turtle Bay as I also visited with my family in a group a month or so ago. They were newly opened then and there were a few errors here and there, but it didn’t put me off returning. Maria and Thomas have also both been to the branch in Bath a few times. On my first visit we were lucky enough to arrive at the tail end of happy hour. Happy happy Harleigh. Our waitress informed us that the brand is owned by the same person who owns Las Iguanas, which might explain the very generous happy hour and delicious cocktails.
Maria and I had matching meals starting with the pulled pork salad followed by the goat burger main course. We both agreed the fruit in the salad was a nice flavour, but we both like strawberries and grapes in our salads too so maybe that’s just us. Despite both being onion lovers, we also agreed that it contained an overpowering amount of raw red onion which was disappointing as they do have a pleasant taste in moderation. Thomas had the beef patty as a starter and the jerk chicken main course. I don’t really eat beef so we’ll have to trust his opinion that it was a good patty.
The faces of having to wait for me to have a photoshoot with your food before you’re allowed to eat it. So annoyed I left my memory card for my camera – it would have brought me nothing but joy embarrassing these two having my DSLR, bouncing my flash off of every surface. Next time.
One ‘grilled jerk spiced goat burger, brioche bun, jerk glaze, green seasoning, sweet onion chutney, sweet plantain, Caribbean slaw and sweet potato fries.’ You can’t see any plantain on my plate? Neither could I, and that portion behind was ordered separately by Thomas. We told our waiter who we heard say to the chef that each was supposed to come with two pieces of plantain, yet we were brought only two between us. The actual burger was nice but not particularly jerk flavoured, the fries were crisp and sweet and the coleslaw was exactly what I had hoped for.
On the down side however, the brioche bun wasn’t great and I’m not sure how fresh it was as it literally crumbled in our hands making it quite hard to eat. Maria was pulling weird faces at me as her brain was trying to work out what ‘green seasoning’ was and came to the conclusion it definitely contained mint. Not sure how authentically Caribbean mint sauce in a goat burger is, but you’ve got to love them for trying.
My family are from Jamaica, so I’ve got high expectations when it comes to Caribbean restaurants, and my tastebuds have a hell of a lot of experience when it comes to jerk. Unless it’s out of a jerk drum or made at home I usually just don’t order it to avoid disappointment. I didn’t try it so we’ll all just have to take Thomas’ word that it was good, and the fact that he wiped his plate and bones clean.
Overall it wasn’t bad, and as far as Caribbean restaurants go, I’ve definitely had worse. Mum’s keen to go back so there could be another Turtle Bay post on the horizon yet.
Harleigh Reid
I write about food and eat a lot.
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