A note on the words: jerk is a Jamaican technique of seasoning and grilling meat in a hot, allspice-based marinade; the dark, charred crust it leaves behind is what’s called the bark here. Festival is a fried bread typically served alongside jerk dishes. Curry goat and brown stew chicken are both slow-cooked Jamaican dishes built on similar spice bases, one made with goat and the other with chicken.
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Good Wood Terrace on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hey, this is Hangover Meshi. Today I’m switching things up a little and heading to Shibuya! Why Shibuya, you ask? Because I heard there’s a Jamaican restaurant here that serves actual Jamaican food! What even is Jamaican food? Jerk chicken is about the extent of what I could picture, nothing else came to mind at all — so I went to try it out! It’s in Dogenzaka, tucked a bit further in, in a corner with a kind of underground feel to it. There’s music playing fairly loud that sounds sort of reggae-ish, which gives the place a real sense of being somewhere else ^^
So, let’s just go a la carte and order what looks good!
Good Wood Terrace Menu
A la carte
From jerk-style grills to stews, the standard dishes of Jamaican cooking are all here.
Tried it. Juicy chicken bursting with meat juices, with a bark (the dark charred crust) packed full of flavor — superb.
Tried it. The dark part that looks burnt is actually a concentration of flavor. Not very spicy, but full of savory depth.
Tried it. A standard Jamaican goat curry. No gaminess, and a gentle, stew-like flavor.
Tried it. A braise that tastes like curry goat with the curry powder left out.
Tried it. Plump, springy shrimp — perfect for pairing with beer.
Tried it. A dish like fried bread. Pairs well with the jerk-style dishes.
Drinks
A standard beer among reggae fans. Crisp and easy to drink.
*Prices are as of a visit in November 2024. Prices may have changed since.
At first I was wondering what to drink, so I checked the menu, and there was a distinctly Jamaican-looking beer!
It’s a Jamaican specialty, or rather, apparently a standard among reggae fans!
It looks like it’s actually made in the Netherlands, but it’s crisp and quite easy to drink.
And here’s the jerk pork! I ordered it along with the jerk chicken, but this one came out first.
I thought the dark part on the outside was burnt, but it’s not bitter at all. This is that thing you hear about in BBQ — the bark lol, the part packed with flavor. I figured it might come with more spice and heat, but it’s not all that spicy. If anything, the savory depth is what makes it delicious.
Garlic butter shrimp! It sounds delicious from the name alone. The sweetness of the onion and the spices they probably use in the jerk dishes come together with the butter — so good! Plump, springy shrimp make the perfect beer snack!
And this is curry goat. A curry made with goat meat, a Jamaican standard. The goat has no gaminess at all and is easy to eat — more like a curry-flavored stew than a curry, really. It’s fairly thin and soupy, and while you can taste the curry, it’s not that strong. It has the feel of a braise with a bit of curry powder stirred in. Delicious.
And here’s the jerk chicken. This one has a good-looking bark too — looks delicious!!
The pork was great, but the chicken is good too! Juicy chicken with meat juices spilling out, paired with that bark, makes for a really good flavor. The chicken is cheaper too, so I can see why it’s the standard order. This is a genuinely good dish for eating chicken.
And this is the Caribbean avocado salad, chosen purely for the name. Delicious ^^
How to put it — it’s like fried bread, or maybe the outside of a corn dog. Good lol
This is the brown stew chicken. And,
And this is the stewed oxtail. The flavor doesn’t change all that much lol
It has the feel of curry goat with the curry powder left out. And to finish, a Heineken ^^
So, I went and ate Jamaican food, and the jerk-style dishes really are outstanding! You could get by on nothing but that, the salad and a beer. It’s no doubt good with rice too, but the fried-dough festival was also incredibly good, and even though it seems like the kind of combination that would pack on the pounds, it worked out great.
Jamaican cooking — pretty great, if you ask me!
Good Wood Terrace (Latin American / Shinsen Station, Shibuya Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
