REVIEW | Maureen's, Chapeltown

RESEARCHING a feature about hidden gems in the suburbs of Leeds has had me all over the LS postcode.

Maureen’s - the worst kept secret in Leeds' restaurant scene - is only about a ten-minute drive from the city centre, but the strip of Roundhay Road it occupies was seemingly mapped out by somebody playing Sim City while riding a horse. On my third time circling the block I manage to maneuver my way down a side-street and find a legal-enough parking space.

'This had better be worth the drive', I think to myself, ever the optimist. Twenty minutes later, if somebody had interrupted my meal to warn me that my car was being towed, I would’ve ignored them and picked up a copy of Autotrader.

The flavours are bang on, and the meat itself is juicier than a six-pack of Lilt

I’ve come for lunch with a friend who could talk his way out of a hostage situation, yet, from the moment food starts appearing at the table, we exchange about four sentences: all variations of “Oh my god” and “You’ve got to try this."

Patties of flaky, buttery pastry are filled with saltfish and ackee (£1.5), like the fun cousin of a Cornish pasty. A slice of baked macaroni cheese (£2) comes in all its inelegant glory: its faint cheesiness - like the one really good Quaver in the bag - is a relief after three years of Comte & Double IPA versions of the stuff at 'dirty food' bars for eight quid a ramekin. It’s also two quid for more than two grown lads can muster the appetite for.

That’s not to say we didn’t give it a good go. And not just out of stubbornness after Maureen herself joked about whether we could finish everything we ordered.

Curry Goat

There’s a murky richness to the curry goat (£3.50) from cooking it on the bone; a stew of marrow and spices and potatoes just barely holding it together. The meat peels off the bone, revealing a welcome tender pinkness.

Though the meat here perhaps isn’t for the squeamish. Chicken is butchered in such a way that even Scotland Yard forensics would struggle to piece back together. I’ve stripped many chickens, but all I could make out here was a telltale leg or wing. The reason for the unorthodox cuts, we're told, is to maximise the surface area for the marinades and coatings, as with the fried wings.

These come in at £2.50 for around eight assorted pieces, some are half-wings and some trimmed in a way that they might be called something wanky like 'chicken lollipops' on menus charging two-to-three times as much. The deep-fried coating manages to be sound-effect-crunchy while keeping the meat inside tender. There’s also a glossy BBQ sauce with pineapple sweetness and the glow of nutmeg to accompany them.

Chicken wings

The benchmark of any Caribbean cafe, Jerk chicken (£3) is daubed with a wet rub that hums with cloves, black pepper and thyme, with muted high notes of tarragon or anise, and a lively scotch bonnet hit that never dominates. We order it with plantain and a couple of fried dumplings that have an almost-glazed finish. We tear into dough that's as pillowy as a freshly-plumped cushion.

The flavours are bang on, and the meat itself is juicier than a six-pack of Lilt, but I can’t detect a hint of real-flame char or a lick of pimento smoke. As I scrape every last morsel of flesh from the thigh, as though preparing for taxidermy, I ponder how monumental it could be to combine Maureen’s food with the firepower of somewhere like Ox Club.

Jerk chicken

It came as a big relief to find that Maureen is indeed a real person, who greets and serves every customer (she's also been known to deliver takeaway orders), rather than a company mascot or mysterious 'aunt' of questionable existence whose secret recipe is boasted about on a menu written by restaurant consultants.

It's also a pleasant surprise coming across a West Indian restaurant that isn't kitted out to look like the Caribbean leg of Disneyland's 'It's A Small World After All' ride - there's not a steel drum or corrugated tin cocktail bar in sight. Inside, tables are scattered with red-top newspapers rather than repurposed Red Stripe cans, and ambient noise comes from chefs chatting with regulars rather than Now That’s What I Call Reggae. With food like this, you don't need any posturing.

Maureen's, 105 Roundhay Road, Leeds, LS8 5AJ