Jerk King

Very nice place. Interior is open, bright, and well appointed. The food was pre-made, and served cafeteria style — except the jerk shrimp which was made once ordered. We had the jerk chicken, curry lamb, and curry goat. With the curry entrees were chickpeas and also red beans and rice. My wife had red beans and rice with the jerk shrimp. Everything was quite good and the portions were large. We will be going back!

Great new spot in town. The service was excellent and the atmosphere is nice. I'm a vegetarian, so my options were fairly limited, but they did have a veggie plate. The food is a little on the spicy side for my tastes (big wuss here), but I think the average person would enjoy it and the rest of my party enjoyed their food; cleaning their plates. These are the reasons for my 4 stars, but honestly a personal preference. We went at lunchtime, so everything is pre-made, but I don't know if it's that way for dinner. (A lot of the dishes would need long cooking times to get the flavors anyway, so I don't think it's a negative at all.) Overall, I would recommend checking it out! Nice to see a new kind of cuisine come to Rochester.

The one with the rice has jerk chicken, and chickpeas with spinach. The other dish is beef stew with fried plantain. My husband is part Jamaican and grew up eating Jamaican food. The chicken is spicy but it's also slightly sweet more reminiscent of a spicy BBQ sauce, which according to my husband is not true jerk chicken. The chicken was overcooked and dry. It seemed like the sauce was only on the outside and that the chicken had not been marinated in the jerk sauce. The chickpeas were fine. The beef stew was very tender and the stew flavor was nice. The fried plantain was very sweet but would be better thinly sliced and fried. The serving size for a small meal is quite big so definitely worth what they charge for it. However, they struggled to give me the option of just the beef stew and fried plantain. I think they would have more success if they offered a la carte options in case you don't want the meal. Also the fried plantain does not come with the meal, that is a la carte as are the fried dumplings. Maybe that will change. I'm not sure if I would go again.

I decided to stop by Jerk King while in Rochester for a few days with friends. We went for a late lunch. I ordered jerk chicken, rice and peas (beans) and fried plantains. My friend from Jamaica ordered the curried goat. I enjoyed the chicken and plantains. The rice was a little dry but had good flavor. My friend said that he liked the meal and was pleasantly surprised how good it was. I would eat there again.

This restaurant is a Caribbean style restaurant with the food set up in warmers so you can see what you’re ordering right away. The food looks like it’s continuously prepared as they don’t keep a lot of everything out, so I’m assuming they keep it as fresh as possible. I got the jerked chicken, curry rice, curry potatoes, some coleslaw, and a little sample of the curry chicken. The jerked chicken is so incredibly flavorful, from the skin to the meat. It has a kick to it, with a slight background sweetness to balance it. I thought the rice was a little plain for my taste but it went well with the chicken. The potatoes were perfectly cooked, and not mushy at all. The curry chicken was super tender and flavorful as well. All in all I would definitely eat here again, just to try all the other delicious looking meats and sides.

My expectations were high since I'm used to jerk places where portion sizes are huge and take at least 2 sittings to finish but the portion sizes. Are not big at all felt like I was eating a kids plate. I paid 13 bucks for 2 pieces of meat and a few large spoons of rice. I asked for to go and I waited for 15 or so minutes for them to find to go containers!! (Who doesn't have to go containers ready to go? Definitely something they should work on) the meat was okay a little spice a little sweet but for jerk food definitely not what I'm used to at all. The rice was pretty bland. I got my kids the ox tails and I have to say again not what I'm used to. It wasn't horrible but it's not like they make it where I am from.

As a Jamaican-American, I was excited to try the only Caribbean restaurant in Rochester. I ordered the curry goat and plantain and to my dismay the curry was gritty, potatoes were hard and covered in a reddish sauce and not cooked all the way. The plantains however were delicious and the only reason I gave them one star instead of zero.