Da Blue Lagoon

Last night Amber, Damien, and I went to Da Blue Lagoon restaurant on College Ave.

Da Blue Lagoon was not on our radar before last night. In fact, we had decided to go to a popular tapas restaurant downtown but were thwarted because we didn't make that decision until it was too late to get a reservation. So Ber and I did a little searching on Intake Weekly, and thought some Caribbean food would be a nice change from our normal fare (not to mention that it's a rarity in Indianapolis).

The restaurant takes its island theme to heart--not so much in the decorations, which though bright and cheerful are not particularly tropical--but certainly in the service. The food took quite awhile to come out--our entire visit was almost two hours, in my opinion a surprisingly long time for such a small place that didn't have very many customers. But I hardly noticed the wait, due to pleasant company and a wonderfully cheerful waitress. It's a very laid-back place, no hustling and bustling in sight, which made for a relaxed dining experience.

The food itself was a nice change from the ordinary. I had 'combo' plate that consisted of both jerk chicken and jerk pork, as did Amber. I believe D also sampled the jerk chicken, and in addition he tried the orange-ginger chicken and seemed to enjoy it. Along with all of the entrees came rice and beans, sauteed cabbage, broccoli, and carrots, fried plantains (yum), and crispy cornmeal fritters called festival rolls (double yum). We received a ton of food for only around $11.

My one complaint is that while a definite smokey taste came through in the 'jerked' meats, I did not taste much of what I traditionally consider to be jerk flavors. I once had amazingly delicious jerk chicken in LA, and the sauce was both slightly sweet and very hot (I think we were given options of varying degrees of hotness, jerk sauce traditionally being made with the incredibly hot Scotch bonnet pepper which may be too much heat for the average person). I didn't detect any sweet or heat in Blue Lagoon's jerk dishes. That being said, they were still enjoyable.

One last plus was the restaurant's drink options. While Ber and D opted for classic Red Stripe, I had a fantastic Jamaican ginger beer. If you haven't heard of it, the answer is no, it's not alcoholic...but it IS delicious. It's similar to ginger ale but there is a more pronounced, fresh-tasting ginger flavor. I became seriously hooked on it Down Under, where it's available everywhere.