With a five star JustEat rating, expectations were high for my meal from Leeds Caribbean takeaway Yard Style Flavorz.
The about section on their page was further enticing: “Daydreaming about being on white sandy beaches lying in the sun. Yard Style Flavorz can bring a taste of the Caribbean to your door this evening…bring the sunshine to your door in the shape of Caribbean food.”
These were lofty statements, but I had just about grown sick and tired of the grey rainy view of Yorkshire suburbia from my living room window. In a bid to lift my spirits away from the cold harsh reality the 10C climate brings, I was about ready to put my faith into the Woodhouse establishment – which is based on Blackman Lane.
Read more: TripAdvisor's top place to eat in Leeds for 2022 left us underwhelmed
Yard Style Flavorz, formerly known as Island Grill, offered such a wide variety of authentic Caribbean dishes that my house guest and I decided to go for a range of small menu items to share. Being unfamiliar with many of the items on offer, it was hard to decide what to purchase. The pricing seemed reasonable and the delivery was impeccably timed, it must have taken about 45 minutes arrive.
Although, a lot of our food came in cold – which was slightly confusing due to the fast delivery speed - but it made up for it by tasting so good.
Each of the small dishes came with rice and kidney beans. The small brown stew chicken was really tender, it fell off the bone. It had a rich flavour, a little plain perhaps but there were more exciting chicken dishes we could have chosen by all means, like the jerk or curried chicken.
Next up was the small oxtail. It didn't look particularly appetising, the deep black colours of the meat and sauce not doing it any favours, but this was a simply delicious and tender piece of meat. It had a sweet vibrant flavour.
I wanted to order the small ackee and saltfish, ackee is a fruit from a West African tree, but they rang up to say they were all out of saltfish. So we went with ackee and butterbean instead. The ackee was creamy and light, a nice contrast to our meat dishes.
The yard style fish and chips was the item I was most intrigued by when making my order. The fish didn’t disappoint, it tasted incredible, probably the best fried fish I’ve ever had. They’d seasoned the batter with spices, giving it a fried chicken style coating. It made up for awful chips, which were your standard takeaway fries and were cold upon arrival. It came with a Fanta, which thankfully was icy cold.
The dumplings were ginormous. They were like massive doughballs which had a sweet taste to them, almost like a round savoury doughnut. These were very filling but also very tasty.
Unfortunately, they did get some items wrong and gave us others by mistake. We ordered plantains, which didn’t materialise. Plus they gave us mac and cheese dish and an extra dumpling. The mac and cheese was smooth and creamy, couldn't complain.
At the time, there was so much food – we completely forgot about the plantain and we were quite pleased with the extra items. Overall, really tasty even though some of the food was quite cold and I’d love to try some of their other dishes in the future.
Bill
- Small Brown Stew Chicken - £6
- Small Oxtail - £6
- Small Ackee and Saltfish - £6
- Yard Style Fish and Chips - £5
- Fried Dumplings x 2 - £1
- Plantain - £1.50
- Overall (including Just-Eat service charge): £26.10
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