Curry mutton @ Raggas Caribbean Café
58 Smithdown Rd, Toxteth, L7 4JG
It’s been more than seven years since I left London. While it’s a decision I don’t regret, there are times when I really miss living there. Never is this more true than during Carnival.
Drinking Wray and Ting out of a Burger King cup on Goldhawk Road, watching bus stops nearly collapse under the weight of people dancing on them, giving someone a fiver to use the bathroom in their flat near Lancaster Gate. All those moments lost in time, like sweat in a passing summer shower.
Maybe the best thing about the weekend though — better than the joyful, undulating crowds, better than the thump and reverb of the soundsystems — is the food.
Clanking tongs and forks, the hiss of marinated chicken hitting the grill. Smoke billowing from a hundred barbecues, steam rising from a thousand pans. Jerk, of course, but also roti, oxtail, pepperpot. You’ve not done Carnival justice unless you’re rolling back to Westbourne Park tube.
While I am looking forward to this yAugust bank holiday, I predict — given that I’ll spend at least some of it building a flatpack wardrobe — there’ll be less of a party atmosphere than in previous years.
I will, however, honour the spirit of Carnival by visiting Ragga’s.
The small diner at the top end of Smithdown Road has a well-deserved reputation for serving some of the best Caribbean food in Liverpool.
Their few tables for dining-in are nearly always full and, particularly at lunchtime, it’s not unusual for there to be a queue almost out of the door for takeaway. Lifelong L7 residents, students and workers from nearby building sites all waiting patiently for packed cartons of brown stew chops or ackee and saltfish served on rice, either plain or with peas.
Pick of the menu here, for me, is the curry mutton. Small pieces of tender, slow-simmered meat which — though steeped in a deep gravy spiced with clove and nutmeg — have an unmistakably gamey, farmy flavour.
Best enjoyed with a fried dumpling — crisp and oily outside, fluffy as fresh baked cottage loaf inside. Perfect for mopping up the fragrant, warming curry sauce.
Who needs Notting Hill when you have Edge Hill.
