I got the Escovitch Fish and Festival which is pictured above. Before going in I knew this is what I wanted to get to compare it to Jeremy's Island party fish escovitch. The fish was talapia and the festival in the name referred to the sweet bread stick sitting on the cabbage and carrots. Right above that in the picture you can see a small bowl that contained the escovitch sauce. This was quite a few degrees hotter than Jeremy's sauce. It didn't have bell peppers, only onions, habenero and whole all spice berries. I actually preferred Jeremy's escovitch over this one, which isn't to say this one was bad. The talapia was just a lot thinner so you didn't get that good full bite feeling from it, and the fish itself wasn't as full bodied as the red snapper. In Jeremy's, he had enough veggies to eat with the fish, while this, the onions on top only added a slight seasoning to each bite of fish. But enough about the comparisons. Now we talk about the other good stuff here.

My dad and I both got a mango mint lemonade that was really tasty. There were quite a few chunks of mint and mango pulp but the flavor was awesome.

My mom got the Jerk Chicken off the Grill. It was maybe my favorite thing I tasted. The chicken had a mango chutney stuffed into the crevices of the breast and on top that was killer. My dad got the Jerk Shrimp off the Grill that I didn't get to try because he ate it fairly quickly. I did try his corn on the cob that came with it. It tasted like are really nice fresh grilled corn but had another layer that tasted like it had been marinating in coconut milk before being cooked up.

My sister and Tarrin both got the Brown Stew Chicken which was pretty good. The serving size on this dish was much larger. It was filled out with basmati rice and red beans which I finished off both of their plates when they couldn't eat any more. It was seriously good, especially when it mixed into the Brown chicken sauce. The chicken was really soft and fell apart, and the stew sauce was dark and tasted like a beef stew that had been cooked down to a much richer gravy. Super good.

So yeah we didn't get any desserts but on the way home we stopped at the Churro Station and got like 6 churros filled with a variety of sweet stuff and since they were closing for the night, they tossed in like 4 extra regular churros for free. So I guess this is also a Churro Station review.

Pictured here: Mofongo, Frijoles con Dulce, Griot Fried Pork, Fried Fish Escovitch, Hawaiian Fruit Dip, and a weird kind of Fruit Breakfast Pizza. It was a pretty solid party, though as you can see, our output wasn't as high this time around. We had some people drop the ball. I'll let other people post their recipes should they want to. I made the Fried Fish Escovitch.

Basically I looked at a ton of recipes for how to do it, and then I just winged it. I started with 3 beautiful whole Red Snapper, scored the flesh so it would take my dry rub better, seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic salt, red pepper flakes, a tiny bit of ground allspice, and thyme. Then I fried them in a very hot skillet in vegetable oil for roughly 4-5 minutes per side. At the same time, I brought a sauce pan of white vinegar to a boil, and to this I added green bell pepper, onion, carrot, and 2 whole habanero peppers, seeds in, allspice, orange and grapefruit juice, thyme. Pulled the fish out, slapped the sauce on, and called it done.

It was pretty good. Only real thing I totally botched was I took the butcher's word for it about him having deboned the fish, and so it was a little tricky to eat with all the picking around you had to do. On a side note: I'm pretty sure it is, or should be illegal to boil habaneros in vinegar. The resulting fumes are toxic.

Did these on a whim last Friday. We had pork chops, we had blueberries. Bada bing!

-pork chops
-3 tablespoons olive oil
-2 cloves minced garlic
-Salt and pepper to season
-½ cup white cooking wine
-½ tsp thyme
-¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
-1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen
-1 tbsp brown sugar
-3 tablespoons lemon juice
-3 tablespoons butter

Season the pork chops with salt and pepper. Pan fry the pork chops in the olive oil and garlic until completely cooked about 4-5 minutes per side. Add the blueberries, balsamic vinegar, wine, thyme, nutmeg and brown sugar. Simmer to reduce the volume of the sauce by half. Add the lemon juice and butter and simmer for an additional minute or so until the sauce slightly thickens. Season with salt and pepper to taste and spoon the sauce over the cooked pork chops.

These turned out pretty nice, especially for being spur of the moment. We served them with garlic mashed potatoes.