DeRusha Eats: Marla's Caribbean Cuisine
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- When you ask Twin Cities chefs where they like to eat when they're not at work, Marla's Caribbean is often the answer.
"It's a very healthy, tasty multi-ethnic food," said Marla Singh Jadoonanan, the chef and owner of Marla's.
Her kitchen is tiny, but her flavors are enormous.
"A lot of people think Jamaica is the Caribbean. We do have other islands on there," she laughed.
Jadoonanan was born in Trinidad and Tobago. She was the youngest of seven siblings and moved to northeast Minneapolis when she was 15. Her parents both died while she was young.
"Before he died, my dad made sure I knew how to cook, sending me to help the old women cooking in the village," she said.
Her Caribbean food is more than jerk: it draws on influences from India, Africa, China, Spain, and Portugal.
"So all of that cuisine, you put that together, oh my, it's just fantastic," she said.
Her callalloo is incredible: a creamy, rich mixture of greens, okra and coconut milk. She does serve jerk chicken, but it's a wet jerk, instead of the dry jerk. She added a wet jerk sauce, after suggestions from customers.
And her curries are very different from the curries typical in India or China.
"The Trinidad curry is so different, the spice blend is so different, it just kind of marries each other," she said.
No one flavor stands out, instead it's a perfect harmony of flavors.
Marla said she opened her restaurant on South Bloomington Avenue as a sort of midlife crisis move.
"At 40 years, some people buy sports cars, I quit my medical job and here I am," she said.
It's a family affair: her husband, Ian, and son, Joe, are often by her side cooking.
"That boy can cook," she said. "Sometimes the student becomes better than the teacher."
Chicken, goat, beef, oxtail: all cooked slow and low in pots that have flavor baked in.
"Most of these pots I brought with me when I came up here with my suitcase," she said.
The kitchen starts at 8 a.m. to be ready for lunch. This is not a fast food, quick-serve experience.
"You come here on a Saturday on a weekend when we're busy, you will be waiting 45 minutes or an hour for your food. I'm not gonna do it the fast food way. It's just not the right way," Jadoonanan said.
From a career as a nurse, caring for the sick, to a dream of caring for her restaurant's guests every single day, Marla's is a place where you can taste the love.
"I've never been happier in my life," she said. "I love it."
Marla's Caribbean Cuisine
3761 Bloomington Avenue S., Minneapolis MN 55407
Open Tue-Saturday 11:30 a.m.- 3 p.m.; 4 p.m.- 8 p.m. (9 p.m. Friday/Saturday)
