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Get ready for a new kind of favorite food. The roti — an irresistible doughy flatbread whose Indian origins speak to Trinidad’s kaleidoscope of cultural influences — is made to order by owner Pam Jacob, the anchor for the restaurant’s flotilla of helping family hands.
Jacob sprinkles spiced, ground, yellow split peas (dahl) between the layers of dough for the Dahlpurie Roti, enveloping potatoes and garbanzo beans with your choice of chicken, beef, lamb or goat. Wrapped with wax paper, it is meant to be picked up and eaten, carefully, tearing the top inch or two of paper at a time.
The same meats are available in a different style: Paratha Roti, known in Trinidad as “Buss-up-shut” for its resemblance to a “bust-up shirt” because it comes in folds that easily tear into flickering flakes that look like the shredded cloth of a disintegrating shirt.
Fire seekers should be sure to ask for the hot sauce, but the pillowy goodness of roti against savory meats and cumin-spiced garbanzo beans and potatoes does not need it.
Jacob’s deft ministrations, easily glimpsed from the front counter, justify the couple of bucks difference between lunch at her place and the Ave’s other temptations. Though she ran a small place in central Trinidad, this is her first restaurant in the U.S.
We should thank Jacob for locating here. Her “punches” are too easy to suck down in one go. The pumpkin punch, topped with nutmeg and cinnamon, inspired little coos from my companion, who had lusted for roti since she left Canada.
But it was the peanut punch, tasting like a liquid version of Veil’s salted peanut butter ice cream, that nearly caused a fight on another night. Only an order of the $3 Sorrel, a juice made from dried hibiscus and mixed with cinnamon and cloves, resolved the dispute. The beer and wine license at Pam’s Kitchen is pending, but the drinks are the most original in town as is.
Check in to see when Jacob is planning her West Indian nights, a fledgling tradition she decided to host after brisk business opened her eyes to Seattle’s untended supply of folk from hotter climes.
“We didn’t know there were so many Caribbean people in Seattle,” Jacob said. “When we opened up this place, we realized that they don’t have a place to feel like home.”