Roti in Minnesota … yep it’s true at Harry Singh’s Caribbean Restaurant

There were many thing that were super yummy at the Minnesota State Fair, but the two things I didn’t expect to find were Roti and Doubles. Yet lo and behold, I stumbled into Harry Singh’s Caribbean Restaurant booth in “The Food Building”. I have to say that the last thing I was expecting to find was a Roti …


Of course, find a roti shop, required some investigation as to how Trinis got to Minnesota. For the Trinis, America isn’t one huge parking lot, hence a map to refresh or add to your memory.

Now that you have your geography lesson … Harry is originally from Princes Town and went to MN in the 80’s. That’s as much as I can remember since it was so busy at the booth. Minnesota is definitely not on your typical Trinidad flight path … since the usual tends to be Toronto, New York or Florida.  I didn’t get a chance to do a full review on the roti etc … since the shop was closed on Monday, so I can forward you over to another blogger review here.
Now I had a roti and doubles … the price was staggering – a tiny Chicken Roti with thigh meat was $7 and a doubles was $4USD!!! To be fair, this was the Fair and no one wants to eat a full meal at any booth at the Fair … hence the size was appropriate for the venue. I even questioned the size and Harry gave me a very sound answer … I’m pretty sure he knew how tiny it was! This was definitely catering the customers … especially when the customers happen to be of Scandinavian extraction … so they have no clue about what the regular size of a Doubles or Roti should actually be.

To my point above, here is our friendly blogger’s bottom 5 things about Harry Singh’s which I found completely funny

1. When super white people come in and order everything mild and without spices of any sort – It must be super tough to keep things authentic, when Minnesotans come and basically ask for a different version of Roti or Doubles. A Roti without pepper or chutney is just not the same … but business is business, you have to cater for your customers and their tastebuds or lack there of.
2. It’s a little busy (visually) inside the place – a LOT of words to read … she’s never been a Rum shop before … so that’s a fair comment.
3. IF you don’t like spicy food, you probably shouldn’t go here. See Bottom thing #1 … Disagree, one should always try new things and get educated on different palate types.
4. Seemed heavy on Cardamom, but what do I know? I’ve never been to the West Indies – maybe it’s perfect! No Doubles ever had Cardamom in it …  She didn’t know the difference between Roasted Geera/Cumin and Cardamom. As her review basically said everything had Cardamom, which is just plain wrong.
5. There’s a super creepy photo of Fancy Ray – the best lookin man in comedy – that you CAN’T look away from hanging on the wall by our table. (Editor’s note: he isn’t the best looking man in comedy) – Don’t know who that guy is ….

If you’re heading to Harry’s place … it’s on a famous strip called Eat Street! Also if you’re heading to his website … you’ll find more than Doubles on his site – don’t say I didn’t warn you 😀
As for the food overall … I can’t give it a fair rating unlike other Roti Shops using my Roti Ranking scale ... simply because they weren’t open on Monday and judging them on eating a sample at the Fair wouldn’t be right! I’ll obviously have to come back to Minnesota to do the full review.