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oxtail(16) chicken(16) drink(16) candice(13) recommend(12) plantain(10) cheese(10) caribbean(10) flavour(10) mac(9) poutine(9)
Not sure what happened. We attended Tropikal in June on a double-date & everything was fantastic!! We all shared the jerk calamari, coconut shrimp, Rasta Pasta, oxtail poutine, griot & the rice & peas. My hubby wanted to go back for his bday but last night everything changed. We had the jerk & spicy mango wings, they were great! One of our party had the oxtail tacos, & said they were really good but the Rasta Pasta was completely different this time around. In June it was reddish in colour, nice & spicy.
This time it was bright yellow (maybe curry), not as spicy & a different taste. My husband only took 2 bites, didn’t like it & was disappointed because he ordered it based on having it last time. Peas & rice were good but the griot this time had no flavour & really greasy. The Mac & cheese was okay, the jerk poutine was good.
The service was also very slow & the restaurant was not busy, two groups, 4 at the bar & us. Based on the last experience, we told everyone we know to check it out, the atmosphere is always sweet. Not sure we want to go back, may try it one more time & try other things, because we always want to support.View more
Food was very good. I loved the jerk poutine. Candice gave us an amazing service its rare to find these days. It was impressive.View more
Andrea
I had really high hopes! Unfortunately It took over an hour to get our entrées. We got our appetizer fast & it was hot & delicious! 10/10! But then waited 50 min more for our entrées. This would be okay if it was slammed but people who were seated much after us got their entrées first (the same entrées fyi). I have a spinal injury so sitting for this long gets painful for me, I expected fast service since there were tons of staff. Like 2-3 people were hanging out by the expedite bar at all times (seems weird to allot that many staff to expedite given you have servers as well) The waitress apologized a few times reassuring us it was on the way. Idk if she forgot to fire our entrées or what but it was clear this was not the norm since other tables were being served more timely than us. The tacos were delicious but the only thing is that the hot sauce kind of dominated the other flavours on the taco. My partner wants to add: "The food was delicious although the poutine size was TINY. There is no world in which a poutine that small should be cost that much. I understand thaf oxtail is expensive, but you could have served the same amount of meat on double the amount of fries & it would have been incredible. That's not a meal; it's a side. That poutine size is what most places charge 4-6$ to add as an upgrade. If I'm paying 20$ for a poutine I expect it to be a meal. Your servers should warn patrons about the size at the very least if they notice them not ordering anything else as their main."
Would overall rate 3/5, I know this place could be incredible but needs a little work on ironing out the kinks. Less staff standing around, increase poutine portion size, make sure your staff are properly trained on your ordering/firing system, communicate better with patrons about what the hold up is. I would love to come back eventually & try some more food but this has really put us off from visiting again. Maybe takeout will be a better option for us. Idk. Best of Luck! :)
Kyla
Well done! It's so nice to have elevated Caribbean food in the City. Food presentation was spot on! Nice vibes, great tunes & not to loud can hear the rest of our party. Food was great. The jerk calamari, oxtail poutine & that coconut shrimp was delicious!! We also had the Rasta pasta with jerk chicken, griot with rice & peas & the lobster & pepper shrimp all tasty. We'll definitely be back! Service was a bit slow but it was packed so it was to be expected.