Derby, UK

Turtle Bay Derby Birthday Date Day

Hey Cats,

So recently I turned 36 and trust me when I say that when you get past 30 all the big celebrations go out the window. Instead I wanted a day out with my Bae of shopping and good food. Hell you know a girl had to slip some drinks in there too at buy one get one free it would be criminal not to.

What is Turtle Bay?

Turtle Bay is a chain of restaurants that serves Caribbean food and drinks. The decor is cool and relaxed inspired heavily by the Caribbean far across the ocean. If you love reggae, rock steady and dubsteb then you will just feel immersed in a laid back musical influence friendly atmosphere. The music is chilled and helps set the mood. You will see greats like Bob Marley adoring the walls and we loved he records hanging from the ceilings. 



Drinks

There is an excellent selection of cocktails, beers and spirits. So whether you want a cool red stripe or an iced tropical drink you're covered.  If you go at certain times cocktails are buy one get one free the only catch is you have to order the same drink which isn't a huge issue when two drinks only set you back £7.50.

We kicked off with Koko Kolada which is a tropical take on a pina colada with a cool blend of coconut milk, coconut rum, dark rum and pineapple juice. This definitely a winner for me as it is sweet and creamy. As we moved onto eat we tried the Island iced tea this was more of a tart flavour sporting tequila, white rum, lemon, gin, triple sec and cola. The drinks are definitely good and generous. The last drink we hit up was the rum runner a cooling frozen cocktail dark rum, amaretto, blackberry brandy, banana liqueur, and lemon juice. So if it is a hot day this is the perfect choice to cool you down.



The best thing about the drinks is most of them are vegan friendly so a great place to hit up for vegan friends. I recently went just for drinks with one of my mates and we also tried the the reggae rum punch. This one defiantly got me tipsy with wray & nephew rum mixed with lovely strawberry and pineapple flavours. The atmosphere for drinks only was relaxing and we chatted away for ages.

Starter

For food there is a lot of choice and if you go in at lunch time you can have a set menu or bar snacks if that's your bag. We love to share and with all the choice we want to try a little bit of everything, both being seafood lovers we couldn't resist the seafood platter as although the jerk platter (ribs and wings) sounded fantastic we had a little of them in our mains,



The seafood platter consists of curried fish flat bread, chili squid, crispy whitebait, salad with a mango mole and sweetcorn fritters. It was all delicious and well seasoned the whitebait and the sweetcorn fritters were the highlights. We had this as a shared starter and had already ordered a main but it was super filling. So this would be perfect as a light a bite between friends over a beer.


Main

The choices are fantastic with options of one pot meals such as Caribbean stews and curries, a whole array of jerked meats and lots of meat free options/ vegan. I love goat curry so couldn't resist the one pot goat curry with coconut rice and peas and dumplings. This was dreamy the goat was spicy and tender with  subtle coconut rice and the dumplings were just perfect light and fluffy.



Mr Kaos went for the baby back jerk pork ribs with spiced fries and coleslaw. The ribs are marinated for 24 hours so are quite strong tasting and packed with flavour. The portions are generous so go in with a full appetite and maybe not start with a sharing platter like us ha ha.



All the staff was really friendly and easy to approach the service was quick and they were able to suggest which drinks go well with the meal.


We will be going back to try more from the menu and there is also a great children's options so we will be bringing the little one.

Have you been to Turtle Bay? what did you have?




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