When you visit Trinidad and Tobago, you quickly learn that the local street food culture revolves around a unique dish called doubles, which cooks begin preparing in the wee hours of the morning! Come with me as I head out at 3 a.m. to a Trini doubles factory and enjoy Trini Indian food in Port of Spain, Trinidad!
My morning began with my friend David from Foodie Run TT at Cassie’s Creations just outside of Port of Spain for some Indian delicacies. Later, we’d head to Donkee and Audie’s Doubles and Pies down the road.
At Sharida’s Place (now called Cassie’s Creations), I met Chef Sharaz, who would be taking me around. They sell rotis, aloo pies, a vegetable dish called chokas. There, Sharida’s son told me that the place shifted to a grab-and-go spot during the pandemic.
They offered a mix of dishes, including Trini doubles, stewed vegetables, sweet potatoes, curried shrimp, fried chicken, stewed beef, chicken liver, gizzards, fried egg and sausage, fried aloo, roasted baingan, bitter gourd, tomato chouka, chicken pies, beef rolls, sada roti, and much more!
I watched them make rotis on a griddle with ghee. They stuffed another flatbread with dal to make dal puri. They also make a Caribbean flatbread called Buss Up Shut. Mine contained curried potatoes and curried chicken. I couldn’t wait to try it!
They also fried up some doughy fritters called pholourie, which looked like bonda. Pholourie are little, round fritters made from split pea flour, seasoned with green seasoning, and deep-fried to golden perfection. They’re usually served with a tangy tamarind or sweet mango chutney.
We ate right in the kitchen, starting with the pholourie with mango chutney and hot sauce. The hot sauce was nice and the pholourie was soft, fluffy, and spongy, and not very crisp on the outside.
It really absorbed the chutney and tasted really nice. I loved the peppery mango chutney. It was amazing! Combining both sauces blew me away. Next to the Trini doubles, they were a major highlight of my morning!
Next was the pepper roti, which contains lots of pepper. I loved the flaky layers, as well as the carrots, cheese, and potatoes inside. It was filled with stuffing!
Then, we had a wrapped roti with chicken and potatoes inside. It was massive. And like Trini doubles, they’re filling! You eat it with a red Solo soda. I’m not a soda drinker, but it was nice and refreshing. The cherries in it complemented the thick, heavy roti!I took the rest to go and then tried a beef pie. It was flaky and herbal, and really delicious.
After meeting Sharida (who reminded me not to forget my Solo), Sharaz, my friend David, and I drove to Donkee and Audie’s Doubles and Pies.
After one minute, we arrived and saw the cooks preparing lamb pies and bara (fried flatbread). The bara cooks in oil in just four seconds! Traditional Trini doubles are just bara and chana, but more modern, gourmet doubles add meat and chutneys.
They make bara nonstop from 3 am to 7 am, place them in coolers, and ship them to vendors throughout the city. We got our pies, bara, chana, and a variety of sauces and chutneys (chadon beni, sweet sauce, mango chutney, roasted pepper).
You take the top bara off and eat. It was spicy and not too oily. The bara was light and airy and the flavors of all the sauces and the chana blew my mind.
The cheese pie also contained carrots. It was like an open, savory empanada with a soft dough. I loved the eggplant pie, which was also doughy because it was flash fried. It was amazing!
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