Caribbean Flavor in the Neighborhood

From the Food Vault Dept.: Here’s a review I wrote 29 years ago about a Jamiacan restaurant in downtown Albany, NY. At the time, it was fairly unique in offering this cuisine, but now you’ll find a number of Jamaican and other Caribbean-cuisine eateries in the area. As for Clayton’s itself, it closed many years ago, but I’m happy to note that the address is now home to Hot Spot Jamaican-American Cuisine.

                                                                                        

MY FIRST PRIORITY when traveling is to find the native cuisine. A couple of years ago I poked around Nassau, in the Bahamas, in search of something other than the crappy tourist fare offered anywhere near the hotels. Finally, we learned that you had to go “over the hill,” to the part of town not recommended by the brochures. My wife and I cabbed to a place called The Three Queens and had the best meal of our stay, not to mention a fun time among friendly people.

Stew beef - borrowed from
another source

That’s sort of the feeling you get in downtown Albany, at least when you’re dining at Clayton’s. Formerly a restaurant called Caribeño, Clayton’s has been open for about a year, maintaining its predecessor’s balance of Spanish and Caribbean cooking. You get good food very inexpensively, and you get it at all hours.

You may also have known the location as Calsolaro’s, its name for many years. Located a little west of where Washington Avenue vees off of Central, the restaurant still has two entrances, one of which leads right to the bar. Unlike its immediate predecessor, Clayton’s sells alcohol--wine and beer--and has a list of wine specials posted on the back wall of the dining room. The front part of the dining room is a single aisle flanked by tables and booths; beyond it is a larger room that wasn’t being used the afternoon we visited.

Which was last Sunday. Thanksgiving threw our schedule into disarray and we plunged into traffic so bad that Exit 24 was backed up a mile. This is when the world’s most dangerous drivers come out of the woodwork, and we dodged them all the way to downtown Albany. We were in the mood for food when we got there, although what we really craved were drinks. No good indulging the latter--we had more traveling to do. As to the former, we started off with a couple of tangy appetizers that were, in their own way, restful.

Here’s an important point about Caribbean food: it doesn’t have to be painfully spicy. I’m not sure if I need to emphasize this, because almost all of my friends are tucking into much spicier fare than ever before, so I’m hoping that’s an indication of a much larger trend toward more palate exciting. Nevertheless, Susan’s red peas soup was comparatively mild, as befits a traditional pea soup. Beef and dumplings were involved, and I’m sure I tasted coconut milk.

Tostones - another borrowing

I had an order of tostones, a holdover from the Caribeño menu, although this time the batter-coated, deep-fried plantains had a side of garlic sauce--richly garlicked, and a surprisingly good accompaniment to the plantains.

We waited between courses a little longer than I thought was necessary, but it turned out that our server--the only person working the floor that afternoon--was new on the job and still figuring out how to juggle customers. One demanding party was taking up too much of his time, but he was too polite to rid himself of them.

Undismayed, we listened to music, most of it reggae or reggae-inspired. We admired the wall murals, depicting island scenes. We marvelled at the mixture of races settled in for an early dinner, including one couple introducing their very well-behaved kid to the cuisine.

House salads are included but negligible. Iceberg lettuce, hothouse tomatoes, cucumber slices. The oil and vinegar we requested didn’t make it to the table until a restless few minutes after the salads.

Our entrées were stew based. Mine, uninspiringly named “stew beef,” was a few cuts of same strewn in a well-herbed sauce. The meat was of a varying consistency, some of it tougher than a good, lengthy marinade would have left it, but the seasoning was wonderful, dark-flavored and nicely concentrated. A good accompaniment for the peas and rice, too, that was served on the side, a dish that also cries out for hot sauce.

Interior view of Hot Spot

A mixture of steamed spinach, onions and tomatoes doesn’t sound all that complicated, but the Caribbean seasonings give it a fullness of flavor in which coconut milk again seems to play a part. Susan’s entrée also included a side of tasty yellow rice and beans wonderfully redolent of cilantro. 

Owners Olive and Evril Clayton are from Jamaica, although they spent many years downstate before going into the restaurant business--this is their first such venture. They maintain the Caribbean and Spanish flavors (and there’s lots more on the menu) with cooks specifically trained in those cuisines, and Olive herself is known to spend time in the kitchen, too. “We want people to have an adventure in dining,” she says.

Certainly we hardly had the chance with the small meal I’ve described, so I’m planning a return soon to try the jerk chicken, and I have my eye on the egg custard known as flan, one of my favorite desserts. It’s certainly reasonable enough: dinner for two, with tax and tip and an iced tea, was $25.

Clayton’s Caribbean & Spanish Cuisine, 244 Washington Ave., Albany, 426-xxxx.
Tasty, authentic versions of island fare, heavily influenced by Spanish cooking. Try the jerk chicken and save room for flan. Serving daily 11-11. AE, MC, V. (Permanently closed, but now home to Hot Spot Jamaican-American Cuisine.)

– Metroland Magazine, 5 December 1996