Antillean all-star

Casa Creole cooks up
down-home Haitian cooking

by GENEVIEVE PAIEMENT

At first, we weren’t sure if we’d made the right choice. It was about 8 o’clock on a weeknight last month, and the place was empty and harshly lit. A side door was propped open, so we kept our coats on. An enormous flat-screen TV in the corner was set to CNN, the words “bailout plan” flashing across the screen, and a number of tables had yet to be cleared. But once the food arrived, Casa Creole won us over pretty quickly.

It may not be a great date restaurant (alas, no chances of candlelit canoodling), but the Haitian eats coming out of the kitchen are top-notch. We soon found out the reason for the un-cleared tables: affable owner Jean had been abandoned at the last minute by his co-owner wife, Magda, who had some other urgent business to attend to that evening. So Jean, who kindly shut the door to block out the cold night air when we asked, was left scrambling to keep up with the steady stream of take-out orders and a trickle of sit-down customers.

A starter of kibibi creole ($1.25), deep-fried kibbe-shaped nuggets of cooked semolina with ground beef centres, vaguely reminiscent of arancini balls, won us over immediately. The wonderful interplay of textures—crispy on the outside, soft, fluffy and moist on the inside—matched the satisfying starchiness and subtly perfumed meat. An order of akra ($3.50) was fried to an even deeper shade of dark brown, with an almost mushy interior. Akra are yautia (very similar to taro) fritters, speckled with spices and thinly grated carrot, mild yet tangy.

“This usually comes with a hot sauce, but I don’t think you want it,” Jean said, delivering the appetizers. The reverse-psychology sales pitch worked: we demanded the hot sauce be brought at once. This was our introduction to a little five-alarm delicacy Haitians like to call piklis. It’s a slaw-like blend of carrot, cabbage, vinegar and scotch bonnet peppers, perfect for cutting through anything deep-fried. We were warned to “be careful,” and rightfully so—this stuff will set your chest hair on fire. We proceeded to carefully dab it on everything except dessert. Rounding out the apps, our Haitian patty ($1.25) was the weakest link, seemingly microwaved, with soggy pastry and little flavour.

My pal’s main dish combo ($15) included griot (chunks of citrus-marinated fried pork, a little too dry for my taste) and a deliciously pungent, tomato-based vegetable stew with cabbage and shredded beef. My beef tassot ($13), an instant favourite, was similar in style to the pork, fried to a crispy exterior, but inside the meat remained so tender and wonderfully salty that I devoured every last little strip. Each came with salad (dreary iceberg with bottled dressing), flattened discs of fried plantain, some tasty, moist rice and red beans, and small bowls of tomato sauce with strips of red and green peppers, perfect for pouring over the rice and meat.

The Casa keeps things fresh, with certain dishes only available on certain days. Cow foot stew is Fridays; okra calalou (Caribbean gumbo) with beef or pork is Thursdays; lambi, a tomato-based conch dish, is available Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. There’s no dessert on the menu, but ask and you shall receive some pain patate ($3.95), a moist, spiced delight made with white sweet potatoes, bananas, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg.

While nibbling on the sweet treat, we chatted with Jean about the time-consuming nature of Haitian cooking (most dishes take forever to make, on account of all the marinating and stewing) and the rewards versus the frustrations of running a mom-and-pop operation. Just before closing time, an older gentleman dropped in to pick up the last takeout order of the night: a large helping of djon djon rice, a brown-black rice dish made with dried djon djon mushrooms imported from Haiti. Jean showed us his jar of precious fungi; we breathed in their earthy, robust fragrance and filed the smell under “reasons to revisit.” Djon djon, we’ll be back for you.