Ya Mon Jamaican Cuisine

Ya, mon, another day, another Jamaican restaurant.

Instead of my usual jerk chicken I tried the brown stew chicken lunch special. This is essentially fall-off-the bone chicken in a (surprise) brown gravy. This was served over a bed of beans and rice. A piece of plaintain and some cabbage was included. This is the first time I've had brown stew chicken and it was very good. The side of cabbage was a little bland but balances the flavors of the chicken.

There are no tables but there are some stools and a countertop facing the window. They do not take credit cards.

I could have sworn I had already yelped the praises of Ya Mon!  But as I perused through the reviews I saw a bunch of negatives and something about parmesan cheese and Zatarains?!?!  This does NOT sound like Ya Mon.  Allow me to set it straight!  And I have been going there faithfully for about the last two years getting jerk chicken and jerk catfish dinners.  And it is always phe-nom-e-nal!!  Huge portions of meat, rice and beans.  The dinners are easily enough for 2.  But even if the portions were smaller (pls don't make them smaller) I would still gladly patronize this place.  I don't know, maybe they have had off days with other people, but never with me.  On to the food...

The meat is always grilled to juicy perfection with some amazing blend of herbs and spices.  I'm not a cook or chef so I can't really explain the flavors.  But, it doesn't taste like even the best "American" grilled chicken I've ever had.  And I know some awesome grillers (SO to my Dad and bro)!  I've had jerk chicken from other places and the recipes vary somewhat - so maybe some reviewers have their own recipe expectations?  But to me, their version, which is full of flavor, texture and color is the best!  It reminds me of a couple of other great places - Uncle Joes and Kingston Jerk - but I like Ya Mon best.  Ya Mon's seems to up them on freshness and juiciness just a tad.  The rice and peas taste like they have been stewing for at least a day - so flavorful.  The stewed cabbage is perfect, just slightly past crunchy, not salty - perfect.  And never a dry, bland or mushy plaintain have I had from them!

The service is always appreciative, professional and with a smile.  Order your food ahead if you don't like waiting at least 20 minutes on a weekend evening.  And, yes, they sometimes run out of stuff.  But, there is a good reason for that!  They make GREAT FOOD!

The service here is great. Sadly, the food doesn't mirror the service. We ordered 2 jerk dinners. I'm not sure what happened to the jerk part, but what we got was simple grilled chicken (as you can clearly see from the pictures), that I could have easily gotten my dad to do.  The flavor of the chicken was really good though. The thing that got these guys added to my black list is they think Americans are too stupid to not know the difference between jamaican rice and peas and ZATARINS red beans and rice! Unforgivable! There was also parmesean cheese sprinkled on my cabbage but why? Who told you people that- that was good?I can make Zatarins and grilled chicken in the comfort of my own home. I really don't understand these reviews at all.