Restaurant
Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack
11 Little East Street
Brighton
BN1 1HT
Phone:- 01273 774545
Website www.mommacherri.co.uk
Overview
Momma Cherri’s is Brighton’s only Soul Food restaurant. The restaurant is situated in a quiet corner of The Laines, and is open all day offering breakfast, lunch and dinner. The restaurant has two floors, and offers theme nights and live acts.
Eva and I spent Wednesday in Brighton, and decided to have dinner at Momma’s before taking the train back home.
Ambience
The restaurant is cosy, bright, cheerful and unpretentious. The simply laid tables are complemented by the wooden floor. The walls are covered with photos of Motown stars, interspersed with brightly coloured fairy lights. This being the week before Easter, there were cut out Easter bunnies and fluffy chickens adorning the windows and windowsills. The background music was a selection of Motown classics.
Menu
The menu offered an excellent selection of Soul Food including; fried chicken, meat and chicken combos, stuffed skins, sweet potato pie and Jambalaya. On Saturdays they offer pig’s trotters; now that is something I am very fond of, but rarely have the opportunity to eat.
In addition to an eclectic wine list, the cocktail list offers you the choice of cocktails by the glass or by the jug (I liked that!).
Service
The service was very cheerful, attentive and prompt. Additionally, during our main course, the owner/chef (Charita) popped out of the kitchen to ask her customers if they wanted more food on their plates. Other restaurants would do themselves no harm by adopting this policy.
Food
I started with the stuffed potatoes skins. These were three baked potato shells stuffed with refried beans, chillies, cheese and kidney beans. They were very piquant and absolutely delicious, definitely an excellent way to start the meal.
I opted for fried chicken for my main course. This dish consisted of three pieces of well seasoned, floured chicken fried to perfection; served with chunky English chips, corn sticks and a small portion of potato salad. I was impressed, the chicken was clearly home-made and bore no resemblance to the greasy fat laden fast food variety. The potato salad, albeit it a small portion, was exceptionally smooth and creamy. The chips and corn sticks provided a perfect accompaniment.
Eva opted for Jambalaya as a main course. This was served on a hot metal griddle, and was a flavoursome mixture of rice, Chorizo, chicken, prawns and peppers. The ingredients complimented one another, and the dish had a wonderful smoked flavour. It proved to be an ample main course. Eva then chose pecan pie for dessert, which was served with cream and ice cream. The pie, which was home-made, was excellent and was generously topped with pecan nuts to add texture and flavour.
We finished off with a couple of Irish coffees.
The overall meal, which included a bottle of Voigner, came to £57 including service.
Overall Opinion
In my opinion an excellent restaurant for a relaxed evening and a wholesome meal. We will definitely go there again, and I am happy to recommend it to people; if you don’t live in Brighton then why not just jump on a train?
