To kick off the holiday weekend my wife and I headed to 8 Rivers Caribbean restaurant in LoDo.  We had a Groupon for $30 worth of food that we had to use by the end of the year.  I made reservations online, though they were not needed, as the restaurant was mostly empty upon our arrival.  We were greeted and seated by a young man who would eventually be our server as well.  I decided to start with a cocktail, the dark and stormy, which mixed rum with ginger beer.  It was good, but perhaps a little expensive at almost $10 a glass. 

Upon glancing at the food menu, I realized that expensive would be a common theme for the night.  Most entrees were well over $15.  I’m not opposed to having more expensive meals while dining out, but I expect the food to be great and a good value.  Unfortunately I don’t think the food lived up to the cost.  I had the Jerk Chicken Pasta with Festival Bread, which is one of the spiciest dishes on the menu.  The Caribbean spice is different from what I’m used to, but still I grew to really enjoy the taste.  It was definitely spicy, and I’m glad the server warns customers of this, as it could take some people by surprise. 

Jerk Chicken Pasta with Festival Bread

The serving of Jerk Chicken Pasta was also fairly large and seemed like a decent value for the $17 price tag.  However, the Jamaican Curried Chicken that my wife ordered was a much smaller portion and didn’t seem like a very good value at all.  The dish consisted of slow cooked chicken and onion in Jamaican Curry. Served traditionally with rice n’ peas, fried plantain and chef choice vegetable (green beans).  The chicken was served on the bone, which made it look like a lot more food than it really was.  To top off the smaller than expected dish were just a few of their plantain chips.  I would like to have seen a few more thrown on the plate.  Again the food was pretty good, it just seemed to be too expensive for what was received. 

Jamaican Curried Chicken

I doubt that we will return to 8 Rivers. Again the food was good, it just didn’t seem like a good value. I’m glad that we had a Groupon that helped to eat some of that excess cost.