Ballahoo

We didn't have a lot planned for our time in St. Kitts. We had an earlier dinner so we didn't want to travel too far from the ship, and we decided not to take a taxi to the beach, as much as we love beaches especially in winter, because we had gotten quite a bit of sun (and sunburn) the day before in Barbados. We spent most of our time just strolling around parts of Basseterre with M's parents and then stopped in at Ballahoo, a very centrally located spot, for lunch.

We didn't have much experience with Kittian cuisine so we weren't sure what to expect. Some sites on Google that we are looking at now tell us that it is Caribbean with Trinidadian and British influences, which makes sense to us now that we've tried it. (As a side note, unclear if it is Kittian or Kittitian, and if it's the second, this is not meant to be offensive, but Google isn't giving a definitive answer.) We just went with what sounded good.

M ordered the chicken roti which she really liked. The flavoring and sauce on the inside tasted a little like the chickpeas from Trini-Paki Boys, which was good because that's one of our favorite parts of the chicken over rice there. (We absolutely noticed similarities with Trinidadian cuisine, even if we didn't know about it then!) Inside the roti wrapper, there was shredded chicken with mashed up curried potatoes and carrots, and then the whole thing was very lightly griddled. The curry flavor here was so good. The fries were fine, nice and crispy, but especially good when dipped into the extra curry sauce on A's plate.

A got the lunch special which was chicken curry. The curry flavor in his dish didn't taste the same as M's roti, but was more of a yellow curry with coconut milk. The chicken was a leg and thigh, and the meat was so tender that it fell off the bone. On the side, there was a generous helping of green beans and carrots and some rice with green peas, both good, along with a salad of romaine, tomato, and cucumber with olive oil and vinegar that was nothing special but refreshing. It was a very hearty lunch plate with great flavor.

After eating, we couldn't decide which curry we liked better between the roti and chicken curry. Both were so good, but different. We were very pleased with our dishes at Ballahoo. M's parents got a barbecued chicken leg and a chicken avocado club sandwich, and seemed happy with those. We were pretty happy we went for the Caribbean dishes though.

Not only did we have good food at Ballahoo, but we had a nice view looking out into town and people watching, basking in the sunlight of a beautiful Caribbean winter day. We would recommend a visit here.