THEWASHINGTONPOST.
FRIDAY,JULY31, 2020EZ10
moving up the street. Sunrise
owners Plaza and her husband,
Selwyn Mungo, are justifiably
proud of their dhalpuri roti, a
traditional flatbread stuffed with
yellow split peas, which are
ground in-house and seasoned
with jeera, the darkly toasted-
and-powderized cumin seeds
that distinguish Trini cuisine
from others in the Caribbean. You
can order the roti as a wrap,
fattened with your choice of fill-
ing, but I like it straight, chased
with one of the housemade
drinks, whether the bracing sor-
rel-ginger or the milky peanut
punch.
Plaza and Mungo specialize in
vegan fare, including mock-meat
versions of jerk chicken and
brown stew chicken, both of
which do a decent job of mimick-
ing the flavors of the dishes. But if
I want to go meatless here, I’ll
order the buss up shut, a butter-
enriched variation of the house-
made roti, and use the warm,
tattered flatbread (said to resem-
ble a “busted-up shirt”) to scoopFROM PREVIOUS PAGE up vegetarian sides, including a
superb callaloo prepared with
okra and pumpkin.
If you walk up and down Geor-
gia Avenue on a sunny afternoon,
you’ll eventually run into the reg-
ulars on the corner patio at Cas-
tello Jamaican Restaurant and
Bar (5201 Georgia Ave. NW; 202-
851-4879). They’re the ones who
understand that life is meant to
be enjoyed, even during a pan-
demic. They’ll be knocking back
bottles of Heineken, their feet
propped on the railing that sepa-
rates the patio from the sidewalk.
Some will be tearing into plates of
curried chicken or escovitched
fish prepared by head chef
Dawnette Tucker, a native of Ja-
maica.
Tucker started at Castello in
February, right after Maurice
Grant, the guy behind Move and
Groove, bought it from the previ-
ous owner. Tucker has put togeth-
er an ambitious menu, packed
with curries, jerk dishes and even
breakfast options, a nice counter-
balance to the handful of items
available at Move and Groove.
Tucker’s jerk chicken varies sig-nificantly from her boss’s, and not
just because it’s prepared in the
oven. Her bird is almost black-
ened. It’s also sweeter, rounder,
more balanced, its heat the slow,
creeping kind. Her oxtail is a
gelatinous offering, with bone-in
pieces that make for good nib-
bling to extract every last, rich
morsel. I would have enjoyed
sampling more of Tucker’s cook-
ing but I learned a secret late in
the reporting process: She often
leaves work at 6 p.m., and the staff
remaining may not be able to
execute her dishes.
David Nagar has been running
Teddy’s Roti Shop (7304 Georgia
Ave. NW; 202-882-6488) for 26
years, the last 12 years at his
current location in a sunny store-
front on Georgia Avenue. Teddy’s
still makes the best goat roti in
town, a stewy, turmeric-tinted
filling of meat and vegetables
swaddled in a wrap that adds an
extra layer of richness to the dish.
His buss up shut still delivers, too,
the shredded flatbread serving as
the perfect complement to cur-
ried chicken, beef, goat or even
conch.Even better, if you can’t wait
for the weekend to try bake and
shark or doubles at Crown, Ted-
dy’s offers the Trini street fare
seven days a week, with breads
fried daily in the kitchen. But
you have to wonder for how
much longer? Nagar says he has
one more year on his lease and
his landlord has indicated he
will renew the contract only on
a year-to-year basis. Developers
have been itching to get their
hands on more property along
Teddy’s block, which is next to
the massive redevelopment of
the former Walter Reed Nation-
al Military Medical Center. Per-
sonally, Nagar wouldn’t mind
relocating to the proposed
Town Center inside the Parks at
Walter Reed.
“They’re saying that they are
looking at the people on our
block” as potential tenants, Nagar
says.
The beauty of that move, of
course, is that Nagar and Teddy’s
would remain on Georgia Av-
enue, where Caribbeans have
long felt at home in Washington.
[email protected]Sunrise Caribbean
Restaurant offers its
diners pholourie with
tamarind sauce. The
restaurant occupies a
storefront that used to
house Crown Bakery
Restaurant and
Catering.From the Cover
LAURA CHASE DE FORMIGNY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST