If any restaurant in Tacoma is worth the drive all by itself, it’s this one. In homage to their grann-mothers, chef Reginald Jacob Howell (En Rama) and pitmaster Danzel Johnson came up with a brilliant bricolage of Caribbean, Indian, Southeast Asian, and Southern soul food…and it all goes crazy. The pimiento cheese-stuffed pani puri is one of the best bites of your entire year — mercifully, it’s stayed on the menu despite the recent fall change-up — and the new roster adds fresh takes like BBQ carrots with harissa butter, honey, yogurt, and carrot gremolata, a show-stopping tandoori pork chop with white beans in a viridescent apple gastrique, and a batter-fried miso-accented black cod, served on a hill of creamy grits that itself holds a lake of Appalachian butter gravy. The cocktail list is also full of creative retellings — and Black culture references — like the Love Jones, which is a mango lassi with El Jimador in it, and the scrumpy Detroit Red, made from pineapple shrub, clarified red bell pepper syrup, lemon, and rye. You’ve never had any of his stuff before. It’s a whole new world.
Dining and Cooking