TN Traveler: Army veteran takes Clarksville visitors on Jamaican culinary tours
CLARKSVILLE – About the only things most people know about food from Jamaica is “jerk chicken, and it’s spicy,” according to Andral Dawkins, a native of the Caribbean island nation and now a U.S. citizen, U.S. Army veteran and restaurateur.
Dawkins has been broadening people’s Jamaican culinary knowledge since 2021, when he opened Jamrok Caribbean Buffet in Clarksville. Yes, jerk chicken is among the buffet’s almost 40 items, but the all-you-can-eat spread also has curry chicken, curry goat, stew pork, barbecue chicken, smoked turkey necks, sweet potatoes, sauteed cabbage, fried plantains, carrots and much more.
Three kinds of rice – white, with red kidney beans or with pigeon peas (known as gungo peas in Jamaica) – and flour dumplings are available as bases for traditional Jamaican plates. Dawkins can be your culinary counselor about which rice style goes best with a meat selection.
(Macaroni and cheese is on the buffet, too, but Dawkins acknowledged that its inclusion is for Southern palates. When asked what makes his mac and cheese a Jamaican dish, he quickly replied, “We cook ours with love.”)
Although the buffet is Jamrok’s main attraction, a menu on the wall offers four fish entrees. One is ackee and saltfish, described as Jamaica’s national dish. Ackee is a tropical West African fruit now abundant in the Caribbean, and saltfish is cod. The Guardian newspaper reported that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt often eats ackee and saltfish for breakfast, and singer Harry Belafonte’s “Jamaican Farewell” song mentions the dish.
The other fish choices feature snapper. Herb-roasted snapper is stuffed with greens, peppers and onions; steamed snapper is prepared with vegetables, thyme, scotch bonnet peppers and other seasonings and served with bammy (cassava flatbread); and escovitch snapper is a crispy dish topped with pickled vegetables.
“Educating people about Jamaican cuisine is as satisfying as money in my pocket,” Dawkins said with a big smile and perhaps a bit of exaggeration.
Dawkins said he loves the occasions when a guest will declare total lack of knowledge and allow Dawkins to guide him through the buffet. He even described coaching guests who spoke no English but willingly followed his guidance.
When Dawkins’ family came to the U.S., it was to Brooklyn, N.Y., and Dawkins recalls helping at a couple of his father’s Jamaican restaurants when he was young. He played soccer at Brooklyn College before joining the Army and becoming a naturalized citizen. He was a Special Forces crew chief on Chinook helicopters and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jamrok Caribbean Buffet is casual and only lightly decorated with hints of the islands. Its location is unpretentious – in a strip mall next door to a Piggly Wiggly grocery store – only a few miles from Fort Campbell, where Dawkins trained. He opened Jamrok as he ended six years in uniform.
“Jamrok speaks to the diverse food scene in Clarksville, especially our connections to veterans,” said Michelle Dickerson, senior director of marketing and PR for Visit Clarksville.
Other Clarksville restaurants with international roots include Silke Old World Breads (German), welovEmilia (Italian), Pho King (Vietnamese and Japanese) and Momo’s Korean Restaurant.
Jamrok took its name from two sources. One was Jamaican reggae singer Damian Marley’s song “Welcome to Jamrok.” The other is that each letter in “Jamrok” is the first letter in the names of Dawkins’s family.
TRIP BASICS
Jamrok Caribbean Buffet is at 3441 Fort Campbell Blvd. E., Clarksville, TN 37042. Restaurant information is at JamrokCaribbeanBuffet.com. Area information is at VisitClarksvilleTN.com.
Enjoy Tom Adkinson’s Tennessee Traveler destination articles on the second and fourth Friday every month. Adkinson’s book, 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die, is available at Amazon.com. He is also a Marco Polo member of SATW and the Society of American Travel Writers.