la.foodblogging

Just over a year ago my wife and I were enjoying our honeymoon, lounging on Caribbean beaches and sampling Caribbean food. Just over a week ago, my wife and I were enjoying a Caribbean dinner in LA, at Cha Cha Chicken.

Cha Cha Chicken is at Pico and Ocean in Santa Monica. It’s a walk up joint, with a broad counter which spans the length of its patio. The menu boasts a number of Caribbean dishes, with the usual jerk sauce options (the jerk store called, they’re running out of YOU!) and some other creative dishes like ropa nueva and vieja (new and old clothes).

Unfortunately, Cha Cha Chicken doesn’t sell beer, other than ginger beer. Not that beer is a necessity, mind you, but come on, spicy food + beer = mandatory. You are allowed to bring your own, but we were empty haded so I opted to drink a Ting. Ting is essentially Fresca from Jamaica. It is pleasantly refreshing with a light grapefruit/citrus flavor. Of course, we made the obvious unfunny jokes, “what’s in this Ting?”, “do you want to taste my Ting?”, like I said, unfunny.

The way it works at Cha Cha is that you order at the counter, then grab a seat on their outdoor patio (no indoor seating available) and wait for your order to come around. I ordered the jerk chicken wings (whole pound) which also comes with plantains and dirty rice. Dirty rice is rice with black beans and onions mixed in.

My wife chose the “ropa vieja” which is beef stewed in a tomato sauce with onions and veggies. Her dish also came with plantains and a few tortillas on the side.

I really liked the wings, they were breaded with a coconut shavings. The jerk sauce had spice, but they weren’t too spicy and the coconut was a nice contrast. A whole pound was a lot of wings, I didn’t finish them all, but I got a little help so that none were wasted. We have become pretty picky about our plantains and I am happy to say that Cha Cha Chicken passed the test. Just barely carmelized on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside.

For dinner this place is cheap. We were stuffed with great tasting food for right around $20. Service is quick and friendly.

1906 Ocean Ave.
Santa Monica Ca. 90405

By Jonah (see more of his posts). Jonah is the founder of la.foodblogging and also created Digesty, a food blog aggregator and Cheww.com, a spam free foodblog search engine.