Fill your belly and satisfy your soul with a bowl of ''boil fish'' anchored by planks of grouper in a light broth sparked with lime at Arline's Restaurant and Seafood in Miami Gardens. This family place is owned by Prancetta Washington, a real estate agent who runs it with help from an army of aunts and cousins and on weekends, her husband, Rawn, a longshoreman.

The 4-year-old restaurant is named for Washington's grandmother, Arline Sanford, who moved to Miami from Nassau as a child. She ran several restaurants over the years, and at 77 still cooks but mostly oversees the kitchen and trains family members.

Bahamian food has a strong West African influence via South Carolina's Low Country that makes it unique in the Caribbean. Loyalists left the South with their slaves following the Revolutionary War, bringing with them both Dixie foodways and Gullah, an English-derived creole. The unpretentious food is built on a foundation of fresh seafood with plentiful starchy sides -- just what you'll find at Arline's.

Boil fish, available Saturday mornings, is served with cornbread and grits. Other breakfast dishes include waffles and fried chicken wings, smothered pork chops and country ham with grits. Conch is a must for lunch or an early dinner, served cracked (fried) or dressed (scored bits in a tart vinegar and citrus bath).

One of the most popular items is the seafood combo platter of fried shrimp, conch, fish and fries with lemonade or iced tea.

Dinner means a meal no matter what time it is eaten. Fish dinners are fried or steamed king fish, snapper, catfish or tilapia. Others star a slab of meatloaf in gravy, barbecue chicken in tangy sauce, grilled and smothered steak, turkey wings and dressing (Thursdays) and barbecue ribs (Fridays) -- all with two sides and cornbread.

Pigeon peas and rice, potato salad, mac and cheese, stewed okra and tomatoes and candied yams are almost always available. On Friday and Saturday, collard greens cooked down in pot liquor with smoked pig parts draw regulars who ''sip sip'' (patois for gossip) as they wait for the food.

Other customers come just for the red velvet cake, peach cobbler and sweet potato pie. No one leaves hungry!

Linda Bladholm's latest book is Latin and Caribbean Grocery Stores Demystified.

Join the discussion

Note: If this is your first time using our NEW commenting system, you will have to LOG OUT and then LOG BACK IN.

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.CommentBody@

@Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@