Inna Trini Explosion

With a neighborhood populated by so many West Indians, it's hardly shocking that there's at least two such restaurants on every block along Nostrand Avenue (and further afield) through Bed Stuy and Crown Heights. I'd sampled some of the Trini spots around my neighborhood and needed to try some more. My friend Jeremy, who had recently returned from a trip to Trinidad, joined me in an attempt to eat as much Trini food as we could one recent afternoon. Even though we limited ourselves to a few blocks, we still only tried a small sampling of Caribbean restaurants.

Our first stop was Green Mango Restaurant, located around the corner from Nostrand Avenue along an industrial stretch of Atlantic Ave. Mutlicolored grand opening flags still hanging outside betray the relative newness of this sleek joint, while a menu board along the street lists the daily specials.

Step off the LIRR for some great Trini food.

A quick aside. I'll assume most people here don't know what a doubles is (by the way, I'm acting much more knowledgeable about Trini food than I really am-- I probably had never heard of doubles until a few years ago and I'll be learning about the specifics of this cuisine along with you readers). The "doubles" refer to the two pieces of bara (like small discs of naan) colored yellow with turmeric. These make up the "bread" of this sandwich. Inside is cooked chickpeas (channa), which are ultimately topped with pepper sauce (and this often is made with fiery hot Scotch Bonnet peppers) and a sweet tamarind chutney. Sometimes there are other chutneys in there as well, but I'm not enough of an expert to tell you exactly which kinds.

They taste better than they look, I promise.