Brown stew chicken with yams, cabbage and cornbread muffin
Photos by Sarah Mayo
If you ever find yourself craving some Jamaican jerk chicken, yams with pineapple, oxtail, carrot juice, roti, beef patties or other flavors of Jamaica, it only requires a trip to the northern edge of Rutherford County, and not all the way to the Caribbean island nation.
Upon approaching the Kool Runnings building, located on Murfreesboro Road in La Vergne, the delicious smell coming from the smoker may greet visitors. They know how to smoke some wonderful chicken at Kool Runnings, a name that is a shout-out to the famed Jamaican bobsled team.
This jerk chicken has a tantalizingly smoky flavor on its own, but try covering it in some of the delicious sweet and tangy mild sauce, or, for the more adventurous, the the hot sauce, laced with scotch bonnet peppers.
The walls and tables display various flags, maps, photos and other Jamaica-related art, and the Kool Runnings team seems very jovial and friendly to regulars and newcomers alike, as diners step up to the counter to order cafeteria-style.
A standard Kool Runnings plate includes a main dish, two sides and a sweet cornbread muffin. The jerk chicken and oxtail are popular choices, and other dishes include brown stew chicken served in a savory, gravy-like broth, and fish dishes such as escovitch fish (fried fish with hot pickled vegetables), salt fish with callaloo (greens prepared similarly to turnip or collard greens with other vegetables and seasonings added) and salt fish and ackee (a unique, savory, smooth Jamaican fruit which some describe as having a cheese-like quality).
Jerk chicken with yams, turnip greens and cornbread muffin
Side choices include cabbage, rice and peas, white rice, collard greens, fried plantains, mac and cheese, yams and callaloo.
“I just had the oxtail with rice and peas with some fried plantains. Definitely going to have to try the whole menu,” John Franklin Park III said recently. “This place is amazing.”
Another diner, Kevin Franklin, also recommends the oxtail.
The yams, flavored with a little fruit juice, are incredibly sweet, tender and filling; Kool Runnings loads its collard greens with pork and salt; and banana lovers can step up their fruit game with the fried plantains.
Among all of these exotic Caribbean flavors the Kool Runnings mac and cheese gets a lot of love.
“I fell in love with the mac and cheese—so creamy and cheesy,” Takiyah Choi said. “All the food was amazing; I had jerk chicken, yams, cornbread, rice, fried plantains and mac and cheese.”
Kool Runnings also offers the popular Caribbean street food beef patty, a delicious, flaky, Jamaican hot pocket.
And each day the restaurant may offer a special recipe, such as shrimp curry, jerk pork or even Irish moss, a seaweed.
Jamacian Beef Patty
Try a sweet carrot and mango juice with your meal, from the beverage container loaded with colors, also offering all sorts of other guava, coconut and pineapple juices and sodas, as well as Jamaica’s most famous beer, Red Stripe.
Many in Tennessee have grown to appreciate the Jamaican culture through Bob Marley and reggae music, the nation’s powerful Olympic sprinting team (and, of course, its winter Olympians too), its tropical, laid-back lifestyle, colorful fashions and the famous sacred plant of the Rastafarians.
Now, take a fun trip to Jamaica without leaving Tennessee.
“Great food! I absolutely love the oxtails, peas and rice and collard greens,” Raziyah Ast posted after a Kool Runnings meal.
So get up, stand up, and order some jerk chicken. One love, mon!
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Kool Runnings Jamaican Cuisine
5238 Murfreesboro Rd., La Vergne
Tuesday–Thursday: 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Friday: 11 a.m.–9 p.m.; Saturday: 12–9 p.m.
615-213-2090
Jerk chicken with two sides: $12; Oxtail with two sides: $15.50; Beef patty: $3; Brown stew chicken with two sides: $11.50
koolrunningsjamaicancuisine.com
