• EAT: When I'm hankering for spicy food, I go Jamaican. I'm especially fond of jerk chicken, with its flavors of allspice and chile. So I was disappointed that jerk chicken wasn't available on any of the three visits I made to Barbican Square, formerly Junie's. That's my biggest complaint about Barbican: It has a limited menu to start with -- five or six items plus a daily special -- and one or more of them wasn't available on each of my forays.

But the food that was available was good. Curry chicken and curry goat were both satisfyingly spicy. The taste of the turmeric came through more strongly in the chicken; the heat of chile was dominant in the goat. Brown stew chicken had a pleasant hint of sweet and sour. All came with large servings of rice and peas (or white rice), steamed vegetables or salad and fried plantains -- plus extra gravy for the rice, if you like.

Barbican Square serves breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays, so I picked up an order of that most traditional Jamaican breakfast dish, ackee and salt fish. The mild fruit complemented the salty, slightly chewy bits of fish, which was nicely seasoned with sautéed onion and chile. I was less enamored of the side dishes -- boiled yam, boiled banana and boiled dumplings -- and wished I had asked for some of those rice and peas instead.

• DRINK: Keep it on the island with Jamaica's Red Stripe beer.

• WATCH:Catch a Fire traces the rise of Bob Marley from the slums of Kingston to reggae legend. (Barbican is on the outskirts of Kingston.)

-- MARJIE LAMBERT

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