Jamaican joint The Breadfruit brings Rastafarian cuisine downtown

Brown stew chicken was another zesty option, with shreds of white meat in a rich, tangy sauce jazzed up with ginger, scallions, thyme, and garlic. Even punchier was the escovitch fish — the moist fillet of tilapia was plenty spicy, but a small bowl of clear, innocent-looking escovitch dipping sauce turned out to be a real shocker. A moment after I tasted it, the intensity of jalapeño-infused vinegar caught me so completely off-guard that I could only burst into laughter — before immediately eating a doughy festival to quell the heat.

It's funny, but the soda I was drinking that night was spicy, too, a bottle of imported Jamaican ginger beer that made my lips tingle — hey, it's a lazy girl's lip plumper. I loved it, though. There were some other interesting drinks as well, including cola champagne, Ting (puckery grapefruit soda), and Pink Ting.

And although there was a day's worth of cane sugar in each of those drinks, I still couldn't resist The Breadfruit's desserts. There were only two of them, after all. Ginger sweet potato pudding was a narrow slice of rich, thick pie studded with raisins and topped with a bit of coconut. Unlike the ginger beer, which was the beverage equivalent of a red-hot, this had the mellow flavor of gingerbread. And Gret's Grapenut Ice Cream & Jell-O was a sundae of Häagen-Dazs vanilla mixed with raisins and crunchy Grape-Nuts, with some cherry Jell-O thrown in for good measure. I liked the flavor, but the texture — by turns creamy, crunchy, and chewy — was most addicting.

It was unexpectedly scrumptious, like a lot of things at The Breadfruit. Now I can't wait until they get a liquor license, so I can propose a toast to urban pioneers.