“What sells in my restaurant is chicken, fish and beef,” she said. The only dish that wasn’t a hit was pernil, a Latin American take on roast pork. Since opening eight months ago, McGowan hasn’t really had to modify the menu.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be eaten.” “We just do a straight plantain-cut on a slant, and deep fry it. “If they are black, that’s better than their being green.” The chef takes a simple approach to cooking them. “The skin can be anywhere from a dark yellow to black,” she explained. But when a plantain appears as a component in her other dishes, it has to be ripe. McGowan makes her fried plantain strips ($8) with sea salt, when the fruit is green. Devoted as I have been to Thai and Indian curries, The Calypso Rose’s version offers a satisfying Caribbean alternative. “It matters to me what people are getting when I hand them that container of food.” I could taste that care and attention to detail in my container of shrimp curry ($20.50). “There’s a lot of love that goes into my food,” McGowan said. Served in stews, as a sandwich or with pasta, she said, “It’s just gone crazy!”
On a recent trip back to her native New York, McGowan noticed that oxtail is all the rage there. Her oxtail stew is aromatic, dark and sweet, but it has to simmer for a while to earn all those adjectives. “Everything is guaranteed to be fresh when you eat it,” she said. The Calypso Kitchen, McGowan asserted, doesn’t freeze food or cut corners with canned products. “Then we roast the chicken until it’s tender.” “We grill chicken first, so it can get grill marks and have a smoky taste,” she said. When we spoke on the phone, McGowan explained that she and her general manager, Mimi Garcia, are “very focused and deliberate.” They achieve their rich flavor profiles with spice rubs, curry and jerk sauces, and overnight marinades.
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