Island Cuisine Caribbean Restaurant — A Blue Ribbon With a Long Drive Attached
The State Fair has a category for everything, and if it had a category for “food that tastes like somebody’s grandmother is back there and she is not playing around,” Island Cuisine would take the ribbon and the county would just retire the category.
Island Cuisine Caribbean Restaurant sits at 500 Galleria Mall Drive, Suite 158, in Johnstown. Every Friday and Saturday from noon to 8, they run an all-you-can-eat buffet — $22.99 a head, $10.99 for kids ten and under — and the rest of the week they operate off an a la carte menu. I want to walk you through what that buffet money buys, because it is one of the better food bargains in this valley.
The mains: jerked party ribs, curry chicken, curry goat, and a chicken rasta pasta that has no business being that creamy in a mall. The curry goat is what curry goat is supposed to be — tender, bold, cooked by someone who respects the animal and the pot. The sides read like a family reunion table: rice and peas, macaroni pie, steamed cabbage, collard greens, candied yams, plantains, island fries, corn. There is no filler item on that list. Nobody padded the steam table with a tray of sadness to stretch the budget. Everything on it is something you’d fight a cousin over.
Here is my honest overall assessment: everything made here tastes like someone’s grandma made it. That is the highest compliment I know how to give a restaurant, and I do not hand it out. Grandma food means seasoning built in layers, meat cooked until it surrenders, and portions assembled by someone who would be personally offended if you left hungry.
And then there are the smoothies. They run a line of health food smoothies that can almost bring the dead back to life. I am not a doctor, and I stand by that fact as if I knew something. I am simply reporting what I felt in my body, and my body said thank you in a language I don’t speak.
Now for the sorrow portion of this review. Island Cuisine is at the Galleria, which means it is all the way across the valley from me. I know that sounds like a small complaint. Johnstown is not a large place. But when the craving hits on a Tuesday and the buffet is a Friday-and-Saturday event on the far rim of the Conemaugh, that distance becomes philosophical. I have looked across this valley with genuine longing, knowing there was curry goat on the other side of it that I could not immediately reach. This is my burden. I carry it with dignity, and occasionally with a to-go container.
Verdict: Blue Ribbon Team. A mark of flawless excellence, difficult to attain, fully earned. Good food. Good vibes. Island style — their words, and for once the tagline undersells the product.
Island Cuisine Caribbean Restaurant
500 Galleria Mall Drive, Suite 158, Johnstown, PA 15904
(814) 418-9679
Buffet: Fridays and Saturdays, 12PM–8PM
