Millie’s Jamaican Cafe

Millie’s Jamaican Cafe sits in a global village of a strip mall right in front of UCF’s main entrance on the Northeast corner of University Blvd and Alafaya Trail, sharing the plaza with neighbors purveying Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Italian cuisines among the prerequisite college pubs/bars. It seems cheap food, global tastes, and college students go hand in hand all over the United States, and to that extent, the UCF area is no exception.

Millie’s is the owner,a happy, grandma-like lady from Jamaica who tells it as it is. Inside, posters from Jamaica line the walls as well as wise sayings from the old country. The service here is absolutely no frills and you order up at the counter. The food here however, is pretty good for the price you pay.

I actually love their Jamaican beef patties, filled to the max with spicy beef filling. Sadly on this day at Millie’s Jamaican Cafe, they had run out and only had curry chicken beef patties left. I took one of those anyway.

I also ordered the jerk chicken with peas and rice to go as well as some coconut juice. Jerk is a style of cooking native to Jamaica in which meats are dry-rubbed or marinated with a hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice. All in all the meal at Millie’s Jamaican Cafe came around $8 and it was delicious.

I brought the food back to a chapter meeting on campus and munched on it while I listened to the talks and plans for the coming school year.