Monty & Melo's "5 Months Mon Goat Can Eat" Trip Report - Oct 2012

Great stuff! I remember when I brought my brother in law for 8 days and 7 nights... He was a trip,
as he slowly discovered his Negril groove! Looking forward to your pics and story of the Bentley meal!

Happy Travels...

Skb...

Great report!

So up and at em’ early on Wednesday morning, another wonderful day in Negril. After my walk and breakfast at Firefly, I decided to give Bentley a call to talk about dinner that evening. “Come see me mon,” he said. OK, give me a few minutes and I will grab a cab and head down there. I decided this would be a solo trip and since our normal Negril driver lives in Green Island and doesn’t normally get to Negril until about noon time (and sometimes even later in slow season like it was now), I was on my own for transportation. I asked Johnno at Rondel to find me someone and he did. Johnno knows I don’t like certain drivers (drive too fast, charge too much, etc) that hang around the Rondel area, so he found me someone he knew would be fair with me and who would treat me right. Off to Bentley’s.

Even though I had heard numerous stories about Bentley and had met him on the road earlier in the trip, I had never been to his place. Damn that road is rough and narrow too. I was worried whether my new driver friend would be able to get the bus up there and turned around for the trip back down the lane. Stupid me….the driver negotiated the road with no problem and had the van turned around in the lane headed back down before he even let me out. So I jump out of the bus and head up Bentley’s stairs to meet the man himself. Bentley is incredible, we sat and chatted, he showed me food pics, we talked about dinner, drinks and a little about the history of Negril. I gave him a down-payment for our dinner for 4 people and was back in the bus headed back to the beach in no time.

We all hung out on the beach for a while and my brother and his girlfriend decided to go parasailing, here are some pics from their adventure

Ready to go up!!!

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Up, Up and Away!!!

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After they returned from little adventure, we decided to get ready to head down to Canoe, we needed to stop at the ChineyMon store on the way to stock up on the stuff needed for the Jamaican BBQ tomorrow. We told our driver to pick us up at 330pm, our dinner with Bentley was scheduled for about 630pm. And we had Canoe’s happy hour to attend in the interim.

At 330pm we head out of Rondel towards the cliffs. First stop was the ChineyMon Store, otherwise known as First Choice Wholesale and Supermarket. Again another first for me even though I considered myself a Negril veteran.
Here is a pic of the entrance in case you are one of those that drive by this place every day in your Negril adventures and have never been in

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Inside we purchased two cases of Red Stripe (in the plastic crates, not in the box), a bottle of Appletons Gold Rum for the Bentley’s trip, a bottle of WhiteRum for the host of the Jamaican BBQ, some rice, some oil, and two boxes of boxed milk. The manager (owner?) of the store sits in a little raised office right at the front door of the place. If you want phone cards or cigs you have to buy those directly from him. Everything else goes through the registers. After checking out, the receipt is handed to the manager in the perch and he checks off everything that you purchased on the receipt. This appears to me to be a NBS (No Bull****) type of place. The transactions were handled efficiently and effectively and we were on our way in no time. I thought the prices for the rum were a little better than the Hi-Lo, but I didn’t pay that much attention so I could be wrong, or maybe I was feeling the effects of drinking all day!!

Since the big BBQ was tomorrow and we had lots of questions about how this was going to go down, we made sure our driver stayed with us and had a beer at Canoe to answer our questions. Here is a pic of us all sitting around discussing the poor misfortune of one goat that was going to occur tomorrow.

I took the pic so I am not in it, but this is the rest of the crew

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Obviously we were most curious about the goat, how big was it going to be, was it male or female, how old was it, etc. It was going to be a small, young goat, male. The thinking being that a young goat would cook faster and since we didn’t have a lot of time this would be best. This is where the theme of the trip came from. In response to how old a goat needed to be before it could be eaten, our driver responded, “5 months mon, goat can eat.” OK, that sounded pretty young to me, but he was the expert so 5 months sounded good to me. He then informed me that he had been at home that day sharpening up his knife for me so I would be able to kill it quickly and efficiently. I still wasn’t sure. He said that when he picked us up for the trip tomorrow the goat would be in the back of a car, but that it would be in a box in the back, so no worries.

He headed out after a beer or two and said he would return about 6pm so we could head out to Bentley’s. We continued at Canoe drinking rum punch and this night Melo even had a Caesar. Those things are yummy!!!

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Somehow we got on a kick to take a picture of our bill at Canoe, here is the one from that night

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Here is a picture of the expanded bar area at Canoe, they have really done a good job with the place and that is the lovely Carla behind the bar, pouring me a rum punch!!!

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Pretty soon it was time to head off to Bentleys….

Head out of Canoe and up the road to Bentley’s, remember that I visited Bentley earlier in the day to discuss our meal and leave my downpayment, none of the others had ever been to Bentley’s before and upon turning left and driving up Pee Wee Lane, I started getting questions about whether we were headed to the right place, etc. Chill people, it’s Negril, things are not usually what they seem. Soon enough we were there, we all piled out of the car and up the 13 steps to the deck.

There was another large group there, turned out to be Booger, Sandie along with Sweetness and a few others….

Bentley was busy in the kitchen preparing our meals

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Applying the Magic sauce

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Pretty soon the meals were placed in front of us. Each of us had one crabcake, some brown stew chicken and then Bentley brought a plate of fish for us. We wanted to try a little bit of everything and I thought this would be the best way to do it. A food pic:

Five tings on the plate mon….

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Maybe the coolest ashtray ever….

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Good lookin dudes here!!!

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I don’t know how many of you have or have not been to Bentley’s but it is well worth the trip…..Bentley is an infectious character that just makes you damn glad you met him and spent a few hours of your life with him. His laugh is incredible and he seems to be one of those people that enjoys what he does, how he does it and really enjoys all of the people that he gets to meet. It may be a big act in the name of building his business, but I didn’t think so, he seems like the genuine article to me. We will definitely see him on our February trip.

The funny thing at dinner, besides having great food, we also managed to drink the half gallon of juice that Bentley supplied but at the end of the night there was less than an inch of rum left in the bottle of Appletons….Damn, where did all that rum go??

As we were sitting around talking after dinner, Bentley’s phone rang and it was none other than GerryG123 checking in on things, he talked with Bentley and Booger.

Pretty soon it was time to go, go down the 13 steps…..

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Our driver had arrived and it was time to go back to Rondel for the evening, we had a big day tomorrow, it was finally goat day and that promised to be a big adventure…..

So glad you are back with the report. I like your style, getting out and about, being adventurous. I went in the ChineyMon shop for a phone card. Thankfully my driver was with me as I felt very overwhelmed trying to buy the card with all the other locals shoving money at the owner. It was a trip!

So this is the view into the back of the car when our driver arrived to pick us up for the BBQ. (I am now using this pic as my wallpaper for my work computer, talk about some strange reactions from my co-workers!!!)

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Remember he said that the goat would be in a box, well, he is officially in a box, but we pictured the box being a big box with holes in so the goat could breathe….this was more like he was riding with us and he was our pet. I knew immediately that this goat would not be meeting his ultimate demise at my hands, someone else would have to do the dirty work if we were indeed going to be eating goat that day…

The cookout was actually in Lucea so we had about a half-hour drive ahead of us. Not much was said on the way there, the idea that dinner was sitting in the car with us and that he was so cute made us all a little shy with our words on the way.

Upon arriving we started unloading things and icing down the beers, the rum started flowing and the party was well underway.

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It was time….The goat was dispatched and it was all over pretty quickly…as you can see, Melo was not the least bit interested in this portion of the party as she sits in her chair with her back to the festivities nose buried in her book, I can’t really say that I blame her….

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That work done, things started to pick up considerably, I guess the thought of the goat’s fate was all weighing on us pretty heavy, but once it was done, it was done. Now on to preparing the meal…..

All the major butchering is done…..

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Spices and herbs applied

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Fire readied

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Curry Goat on the fire!!!

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With the curry going on the fire pretty well, it was time to prepare the Mannish Water….This I was very interested in, because I have cooked curry goat at home (not from a goat that was alive a few minutes ago, I have to buy frozen goat here in the Midwest and usually it is from Australia, but you gotta work with what you can get your hands on!!) but obviously Mannish Water was new to me.

Vegetables for the soup…I think there is carrot, yam, irish and green banana in this pot

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Lots of spices….

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Mannish Water now on the fire

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The whole meal cooked pretty quickly, the reason such a young goat is used is that the meat is very tender to begin with so it cooks quickly and doesn’t have as much “barnyard” flavor as they say. We even had some time to fry some chicken for the girls on the coolest grill I have ever seen:

The chicken well spiced and ready

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Chicken frying….

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That is just a wheel with hot coals in it and a trivet on top. The pan sets atop the trivet and gets very hot. I am making myself one of these next weekend, along with a jerk chicken barrel, I will post pics when I am done….

Finally it was time to eat….the party was held around a great little outdoor kitchen, complete with seats, a sink, many grills and nice tile work….

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Everything was delicious…..even the Mannish Water!!!

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Doesn’t it look like I am enjoying it!!!

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I will be the first to admit that the Mannish Water was interesting....the broth was great and the veges in the soup were very good too. The goat parts however....let's just say it is an acquired taste. I could see me eating it again, but I don't think I am going to order it for dinner every night of my next trip. I'm glad I tried it though, check another thing off the list as they say....

Now the party is in full force……

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Time for the Noni Juice…..I hear its good for the Bamboo!!! Melo looks less than impressed

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We had a great time at the BBQ, it was truly a real Jamaican experience and we were welcomed by our hosts. During our conversations, we discussed tourism, Americans that travel to Jamaica and how most of them never see the real Jamaica, interact with real Jamaicans or even get out of the compound enough to give Jamaica a chance. It was fun getting Jamaican perspectives on things like that, it lets you know that a lot of Jamaicans are interested in what goes on, not only because tourism is good for their pocketbook (I think everyone at the party was employed in the tourism industry in one way or the other from hotel employees to taxi and bus drivers), but because they want people to come to their country and leave impressed with what they see. You can be impressed by the beauty of a big all-inclusive hotel but in order to be truly impressed, you need to peel away a few layers, get to know some people and see how they live and how the country is really put together. Sure there are some rough edges, but hanging out in the yard that day really reinforced with me the true beauty of Jamaica and its people and culture. OK…enough philosophy….I am not that good at this stuff anyway.

He headed back to the beach as it was nearing Sunset and we had taken up enough of these folks’ time. We were able to snap a couple of sunset pics to cap another great day in Jamaica

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Tomorrow is our last full day in Jamaica before heading home

Love all the pics. And what an experience with the little goat.

That goat in a box made me laugh harder than anything I think I ever read or saw on this board (I'm sorry Sandie) :(