In what is hopefully only the start of a series of ‘Why Montego Bay is Awesome’, I’ll be reviewing the restaurant on 8 Barnett St.: The Soup Kitchen.

The Soup Kitchen might daylight as a simple hardware store, but between the hours of noon and 5pm every Tuesday to Thursday (and noon to 8pm on Fridays), this unassuming restaurant is dishing up delicacies like Spaghetti & Chicken Cacciatore and Chicken Alfredo (affectionately dubbed Chicken Jamfredo) with penne pasta.

TL;DR reasonable prices, continental variety and good-sized servings = one great restaurant

Barely more than a year old, The Soup Kitchen already has a dedicated cache of patrons with companies and individuals ordering lunch on a daily basis. Did I mention they deliver? The restaurant also gets more than its fair share of walk-ins, catering to a crowd that is hungry for more than the tired fare of foods deep fried in grease and fat. It really is a higher culinary experience.

With a menu as varied as its clientèle, The Soup Kitchen serves its trademark Bar-B-Fried Chicken alongside cultural favourites like curried goat, escoveitched fish and brown stewed chicken. All meals served with choice of white rice or rice and peas. The Soup Kitchen offers a full dining complement with appetizers like mannish water and desserts like bread-and-butter pudding (and if you’ve never had it, trust me, you’re missing out). Even the beverage options are enticing – who can resist natural juice flavours like otaheite apple, cucumber and an expertly blended cucumber-fruit-punch mix?

So is it gauche to mention prices? I’m not sure what the social etiquette is for restaurant reviews. But price shouldn’t count when it comes to good food, right? Wrong. At least, I care a lot about prices when I’m being advertised to.

Soup Kitchen prices generally range from $350 to $700 JMD (with the more expensive stuff, like shrimp, being offered less often). They’ve also begun to offer a smaller lunch deal for $250. The regular sized lunch is pretty impressive too (I can’t finish it at one sitting, but then again I eat like a bird).

If you are ever in Montego Bay and if there are any Montegonians reading my blog, you don’t have to despair about finding proper food. The Soup Kitchen’s got you covered. :)

©R.A.S.2012