Turtle Bay Southampton

Every once in a while when you're in a relationship you and your partner need a date night, where you can sit down, enjoy being in each others company and eat good food. This is what Alice and I recently decided to do at Turtle Bay in Southampton.

For anyone who has never been, Turtle Bay specialise in food and drink from all over the Caribbean. From jerk chicken, spiced curries one pots and steaks, Turtle Bay tries to provide the beaches of the Caribbean to your town or city. I'd only been once before a few years ago so I was definitely up for trying as much as possible. 

We arrived at around 7pm and we were greeted by Pierce, the assistant manager of the Southampton restaurant and shown to our seats. We were then introduced and welcomed by our hostess of the evening Dominika, who was one of the best waitresses I've had in a restaurant in a long time and provided a starter of vanilla and passion fruit mojitos while we checked over the menu. 

We decided to go all out with starter, main and dessert. The duck roll which was slow roasted shredded duck with onion, soy sauce, chilli and sugar cane and the beach food platter which contained a selection of jerk chicken wings, pepper rotti, sweet corn fritters and garlic 'n' herb flatbread to get  ourselves started. We were not disappointed as the variety of foods were a delight.

Then it was on to our main courses. I wanted to try something a little bit different from jerk chicken and had heard how highly recommended the one pot curried goat was with marinated goat cooked in curry spices, scotch bonnet, citrus juices and ginger, while Alice went with the double dipped steak which was a beef steak marinated in jerk sauce and served with green seasoning and sweet onion chutney. You also had the option of having coconut jerk glaze or classic jerk. 

I personally wasn't overly impressed with the curry goat as I was expecting a bit more of a kick, but I loved the double dipped steak with a coconut glaze and want to try this again next time as although it was a lot milder than classic jerk, the steak was cooked perfectly (Medium if you're wondering) and had me wanting more. 

With our main dinner bellies full it was time to test out our desert stomachs, I chose the dark chocolate brownie which was served hot and ice cream while Alice picked the rum and raisin bread pudding. It was like being in heaven after the first bite with the brownie and its by far the best one I have had in Southampton, fulfilling my sweet tooth. Alice loved the rum and raisin bread pudding so much that she will be having it for her desert the next time she visits.

In between each course Dominika did a fantastic job in checking that we were enjoying our food and asking if we needed even more and despite it being busy, made sure she had a good conversation with us and making sure we felt welcome. 

I can honestly say that I'd be happy to return soon to Turtle Bay, both the food and drink were excellent and the staff as a whole were probably the nicest team I have been served by in a long time. How do you like your Caribbean style food and have you been to Turtle Bay before?