Restaurant Review: Caribbean Staples Made “Healthy as a Motha” | The New Yorker

"Tucked into 234 Union Ave., Brooklyn, HAAM (an acronym for 'healthy as a motha') is a white-walled, sunlit, entirely plant-based Caribbean restaurant whose cooking felt like pure sensory happiness. The Buss Up Shut Roti Plate is a kaleidoscopic riot of flavors: a pliant, chewy paratha roti piled beside a vivid-orange swipe of earthy-sweet mashed pumpkin, tender stewed greens, and a sharp, deep, spicy curry mango that made every neuron fire; the turmeric-yellow 'curry chicken' is actually 'chik'n,' a soy-and-wheat substitute that convincingly mimics bird, and what looks like crispy fried chicken atop the mofongo is a teetering stack of oyster mushrooms. When I dropped in, a server suggested the Chimichurri Chunk Steak ($29), made with Chunk Foods faux beef that arrived seared and tender-pink—eerily like an actual filet—and was marvelous alongside fried plantains, rice, soupy black beans, and Ramdass’s ultra-garlicky chimichurri. Chef-owner Yesenia Ramdass, a mom of three from Washington Heights who veganized Dominican and Trinidadian family favorites after discovering Skinny Bitch, started HAAM as a pop-up and Smorgasburg stall; the menu still includes social-media-friendly snacks (like barbecue-sauced faux meat with tamarind chutney on a fried-plantain split) while the dine-in offerings allow for more refined plates: a mofongo studded with smoky tempeh in a pale coconut-cream curry sauce, precisely plated yucca fries beside a jerk-mushroom patacón, and a lime-bright ceviche of hearts of palm on tostones topped with a tiny HAAM paper flag and bested by a few dashes of the house Hot as a Motha sauce (made from peppers grown by Ramdass’s father-in-law). The space—basket-cane lights and murals of tropical greenery—feels like sunshine even on rainy days, and drinks like fresh-pressed sugarcane juice and Tyrian-purple sorrel punch (hibiscus steeped with clove and cinnamon) reinforce the West Indian vibe. The restaurant keeps slightly odd hours, opening at 1 P.M. on weekdays and closing most nights by nine, and while I remain skeptical of 'healthy' as a moral goal, dining here feels indulgent and joyful—and, I suppose, healthy by some definitions." - H, e, l, e, n, , R, o, s, n, e, r