Rocky’s Jamaica Sunrise: foodie hotspot in Maryville

I love Jamaican food. It’s sort of hard for me to be unbiased about it because I used to live in the Pacific Northwest—Tacoma, specifically—and there’s some absolutely heavenly Jamaican food up there. Probably the best restaurant I’ve ever been to was up there, a little Jamaican vegan place that filled you with the warm, need-to-smile-and-take-a-nap happiness that us foodies look for like a fix.

So imagine my smile and imagine my lethargy when I found out about a little place called Rocky’s Jamaica Sunrise in Maryville. Right off East Broadway, out toward Eagleton Village, Rocky’s is a bare-bones joint where you can get generous portions of classic, home-style food at very reasonable prices.

I couldn’t help but notice the influence of Southern-style cooking on the food there. Yes, there’s curried goat, and it’s delicious and remedial—not necessarily what you would find at a classic Southern Sunday dinner, but it gave me a feeling of home anyway.

And a second trip yielded a jerk pulled-pork sandwich with fries to die for.

No, seriously, I am dying to get my hands on some more of their French fries. Their mac n’ cheese even compares favorably to some of the mac n’ cheese I had in Tacoma, which was a local legend among my friends and me.

Also available are some other delicious items: wraps, jerk chicken, red beans and rice, ribs, cabbage, etc. The owner/operator makes all of the sauces fresh, and they’re available to purchase for home use if you want, too!

Rocky’s Jamaica Sunrise is an excellent addition to all the wonderful restaurants in the Maryville/Alcoa area. Although I said that there were a lot of great Jamaican restaurants in the Pacific Northwest, a lot of them were spread pretty far apart. Maryville is somewhat odd compared to Tacoma, in that sense: though we’re far from the size of that city, we have a ton of cultural food diversity all within a short drive of campus.

So you’re spoiled, Scots. Maryville may not have the reputation of being a foodie hotspot, but we certainly have the food to back it up.

Rocky’s Jamaica Sunrise is part of that, and I’m damn glad of it. Go there, get some jerk chicken with some mac n’ cheese and a ginger beer, and then go back and get some curried goat with some red beans and rice.

And then go back and get … well, I’ll have to stop myself there—I’m getting a craving for that feeling again.

3.5/4 stars