by MARK SLUTSKY

When restaurants recklessly use the word “fusion” to describe their cuisine they run the risk of begging the question: just what exactly is being fused with what here? Though traditionally the term refers to some sort of East-West collision—California-meets-Japan or Italy-meets-China or thereabouts—it’s now bandied about to refer to any sort of inter-ethnic combo. Ideally you get the best of both worlds, but more often than not, confusion is the result.

Take Kalalu Caribbean Fusion on St-Denis, just below Marie-Anne. Haitian-run, it takes island cuisine as its starting point and goes somewhere from there, although where that is exactly isn’t clear. Not to say that the journey isn’t entirely worthwhile—some of the dishes are great, while others feel like they’ve just stalled out. And at around $20–$30 per person, it may be more of a gamble than you’re willing to take, although to be fair, the servings are generous and there’s no way you’re going home hungry.

One thing you’ve got to give Kalalu is that they’ve got a great line-up of appetizers. I really liked the Creole cigars ($5.95), three very large spring-roll-like tubes of crab, pork, spicy beef and scallions served with a spicy dip. As they’re baked and not deep-fried, they avoid the overwhelming greasiness that might otherwise get in the way of your enjoying such big rolls. The black satin wings ($6.50) aren’t quite as exotic as they sound, although they are tasty: a generous helping of chicken wings fried up in a sweet-and-sour tamarind sauce. The sauce was good, though the wings themselves weren’t particularly meaty—kind of what you might expect at a pub or sports bar.

The chiquetaille ($4.95) was by far the best appetizer. How to describe this? A mixture of smoked herring, onions, garlic, tomatoes and olive oil spread on slices of baguette, it’s like the weirdest bruschetta you’ve ever tasted. The smoked herring flavour is incredibly strong, and gave me weird flashbacks to my childhood. Not as flavourful, unfortunately, is the accra ($5.95), deep-fried cod fish cakes served with lemon mayo and a mango dip. Soft and doughy, there’s barely any fish taste to speak of; one of my dining companions compared them to hush puppies, deep-fried balls of cornmeal from the American South.

As intriguing as the appetizers were, the excitement didn’t really carry over into the main dishes. The Artibonite (named after a region in Haiti, $11.95) is described in the menu as “a pan-roasted chicken leg marinated in Artibonite regional seasonings,” but I could have sworn the thing was deep-fried, and if it was marinated in anything, I couldn’t taste it. The bird was reasonably crisp on the outside and moist on the inside, but the flavour was nowhere to be found.

The lambi ($19.95) is a stewed, spicy dish of Bahamian conch. The texture of the conch meat was a little weird—it could have almost been chicken, or even beef, and my friend remarked on its lack of “squeakiness.” Also a little weird was the tasso ($17.95), a fried goat dish. The meat that arrived was a somewhat tough little knot of goat haunch, also low on flavour. You could probably get a much better goat dish for half the prices at almost any of this city’s other Carribbean restaurants. The three above dishes were all served with a bowl of rice and beans, and a scattering of squashed plantain fritters, which were yummy with the provided hot sauce.

On a more positive note, the New Shango ($17.95) was a tasty grilled salmon filet served with tamarind BBQ sauce, set atop a bed of rice and surrounded by a narrow moat of ratatouille. This was fresh and tasty, not mindblowing but very satisfying.

You can’t fault Kalalu for trying to make something of its Caribbean fusion concept—it just needs a clearer idea of just what to fuse with.

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Kalalu
ADDRESS: 4331 St-Denis
PHONE: 849-7787
HOURS: Mon–Fri 5–11 p.m., Sat–Sun 2–11 p.m.
BEST FEATURES: The tamarind sauce on the wings and salmon, and the Creole cigars
ALCOHOL: Yes
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS: No
VEGETARIAN FRIENDLY: Yes
CREDIT CARDS: Yes
NO-SMOKING SECTION: Yes
PRICE: $20–$30 per person, before tax, booze and tip
RATING: ** out of ****