It’s always a good idea to stop at those small, family run restaurants lining most of the major roads in Virginia Beach. They’re generally easy to spot. Their signs are oddly garish against the dirty ecru color of the chain stores. Those tend to melt in to the smoker’s-teeth white stucco edifices housing the lion’s share of Virginia Beach’s small businesses.

 On a trip down Holland the other day I saw a sign that said it offered, “Carribean, British, Latino and African…” fare, which caught my eye because the signs colors were the brightest. There were tickets, notes, flyers, and signs taped to the glass windows. Plus the sign was blue and red and I had just passed one of those garish snot green Patient Firsts.

 The place is basically a store, with one or two warm dishes served a day and heated Jamaican patties and coco bread. The warm dishes come with a hearty, what tasted like an unbleached white rice, and mixed, canned vegetables — you know, the lima bean mix in that clear sauce with indistinct red globules of oil running through spiced vegetable stock like wax in a lava lamp. That day it was traditional curry chicken, served on the bone, with a bold and spicy thick curry gravy.

 Every Saturday, they jerk chicken. They take a whole Chicken with a special house blend of herbs mixed with scotch bonnet peppers in to a sort of wet rub. They marinate it for 3 days letting the flavors fully absorb into the chicken. Then they pop a bunch of them on the grill outdoors for about an hour. A whole chicken is fifteen dollars and they’ll break it all the way down to a  ¼ chicken, which is only 4$. They are served with hard dough bread and for an extra $2 you can get rice and veg on the side.

The place is usually staffed by either Odette Cameron or her husband Lance, a real hospitable couple who will make you feel welcome. I haven’t felt that way in a Carribean store, like, ever.

So that was pretty lengthy for a recommendation but I suggest you check it out.     

All Islands

3420 Holland Rd

Virginia Beach, VA

(757) 368-4505