Roti at Wings

Celeste took us to Wings to have the best roti in all of Trinidad. In fact, the Rough Guide to Trinidad & Tobago described it as, “…undisputed king of roti…”

Wings is outsde Port-of-Spain in a town called Tunapuna. The building that housed the best roti in all of Trinidad looked like a private garage shed. It was also set back from the sidewalk, which allowed for parking. Parking was filled; illustrating the restaurant’s popularity. There were people who were parked briefly, picking up their take out roti.

The restaurant interior is spacious with many tables and chairs. There are long tables for a cafeteria style dining experience. There are also smaller tables for groups.

There isn’t any air-conditioning but there are fans that helped the natural breeze that was already blowing through.

The walls are decorated with large format paintings that reminded me of cartoons from The Far Side. One painting that I first noticed was of two ducks that painted themselves into a corner. Another one depicted an old lady with pointy boobs above her saggy boobs walking away from a watercooler with a paper cup dispenser.

The restaurant offers table service and take out. For take out you must pay in advance before you get the food.

There are several roti options. Chicken, beef, pork, goat, shrimp, and others. The roti meal comes with three sides; mango, pumpkin, and potatoes with chicpeas.

Roti is actually the name of the flat bread that you eat the meats and sides with. It is of Indian origin. Roti is similar to the roti found in Malaysian restaurants. Roti is a batter that is scooped and poured onto a hot circular metal griddle and cooked like a very thin pancake.

I got chicken roti while Celeste and Thomas got the goat roti. The food is served relatively fast. You get a delicious plate of basically curried meats with curried sides as described above.

The roti was aromatic, spicy, and flavorful. The spices are not hot as asociated with peppers but it did get me warmed up from the inside out.

The chicken was tender and succulent. The sides were fantastic, especially the mango. I’ve never had mango prepared the way it was served. It is preseved mangoes and I think they used the baby mangoes because they were small. Ivan only assume that the mangoes were preserved and then stewed in a medley of curried spices. The mangoes were intense and rich in its natural mango flavor plus the spices. I could eat that on it’s own!

finger licking good!

Because the roti is a curried dish, I was drinking a lot. I had Shandy ginger beer – great stuff!

It’s kind of like the ciders back home but instead of it being apples, it’s got a strong ginger taste; a sort of mix of light beer and really good ginger ale.

It was a very filling lunch and I highly recommend that you make the drive out there!