Brian Slattery Photo
Nicole Ellis, owner of Around The Clock Restaurant and Bar on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden, said new customers looking for Jamaican food often have two questions.
First: “Do you sell oxtail?”
And second: “Is it soft?”
They mean that when they order the oxtail, they expect the meat to be well seasoned and well cooked — soft and tender, falling off the bone.
Thanks to her mother, Ellis said, she knows how to cook it the way they want.
It starts with the meat itself, which Ellis buys from Minore’s Meats on Whalley Avenue.
“It’s the most expensive stuff wholesale,” she said. Pound for pound, “it’s more expensive than steak! I don’t know how that happened.”
To prepare the oxtail, Ellis first applies a dry rub of garlic, onion, black pepper, thyme, scallions, “and a few secret ingredients — like, three or four,” Ellis said, that her mother will not let her give up to a reporter. The two types of onion, she said, combined with the other ingredients, “give the flavor a pop.”
The oxtail sits in the dry rub overnight. The next day, Elis said, “you tip a little oil into the pan.” She first sautées the meat, then adds the other ingredients, including browning sauce. Everything gets cooked down for a few hours until the meat is right.
“People love very tender oxtail,” Ellis said.
Take-out and delivery orders will prove crucial to the ability of local restaurants like Around the Clock to weather the pandemic during the coming months as Covid-19 cases climb and cold weather sets in. Call 203 – 691-5293 or visit the restaurant’s website to order the oxtail and other dishes for take-out or delivery. Hours are Mon. 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., Tues. and Wed. 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Thurs. to Sat. 11:30 a.m. to 12 a.m., and Sun. 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Ellis was born in Jamaica and came to the U.S. with her family when she was 13. They landed first in New York City before moving to New Haven.
When she was a child, her father was a migrant farm worker — “he was doing that before I was born,” Ellis said — traveling from Jamaica to work on harvests across the Eastern Seaboard. Her mother ran a small restaurant. Her mother had “a passion for children, and cooking, and feeding people.”
She “saw the community aspect of it.” Her mother, in turn, “taught me how to cook.”
Nicole Ellis.
When the family emigrated, they opened a restaurant. Ellis’s father was intent on his children having an education. Ellis attended New York University as an undergraduate, then Southern Connecticut State University to get an MBA. For her master’s thesis, she studied her mother’s business.
“And I said, ‘I’m opening my restaurant,” Ellis recalled.
The menu would be based on what her mother had taught her. “The old-fashioned recipe always works,” Ellis said.
She opened Around The Clock in 2018, having spent months scouting out a Dixwell Avenue location, which she knew would get good foot traffic.
As she rolled out her food, she learned to accommodate local tastes. “You get to know customers and their likes and dislikes,” and “not everyone loves the heavy spice,” Ellis said. She has tweaked a couple recipes “to conform to modern society,” even as she knows that if she asked her mother, “she would not agree,” Ellis said with a chuckle.
Ellis knew the restaurant business is a tough one, applying the rule of thumb that it takes about three years for a new place to really establish itself. The first two years, she saw her business was moving in the right direction. “Things were growing,” she said. She had regular customers, who filled tables with their families. She had reggae on most of the time and hosted karaoke nights.
The side entrance on Whiting Street, where Around the Clock is handling takeout orders.
But the pandemic has hit her customers, and therefore her business, hard.
“The atmosphere has changed tremendously,” she said. She closed her space altogether to indoor dining, insisting that the restaurant keep its customers safe, and relies solely on takeout and delivery. She used to have five employees and now has herself and one other employee. “There has been a drastic reduction in sales. You can tell when there’s money and when there’s no money” in the community she feeds, Ellis said. “You can tell when the stimulus checks come out and when they don’t.”
Ellis already looks ahead to the future. With recent developments, she hopes, “maybe the economy will turn around,” and people will be able to go out to eat again. When they do, a plate of Ellis’s oxtail — taught to her by her mother, and tweaked by her steady customers — will be waiting.
Previous coverage of recommended take-out orders to help local businesses survive the pandemic:
• Today’s Special: Haci’s Napoletana Pie
• Today’s Special: Fred & Patty’s Brie On Baguette
• Today’s Special: Nieda’s Moist Falafel
• Today’s Special: Qulen’s Vegan “Wings”
• Today’s Special: Aaron’s Peruvian Rice Bowl
• Today’s Special: Singh Bros.’ Chana Kulcha
• Today’s Special: Grandma’s Chicken Soup
• Today’s Special: Woody’s Steak & Shrimp
• Today’s Special: Shilmat’s Yemisir Sambusa
• Today’s Special: Arjun’s Vegetarian Manchurian
• Today’s Special: Mohammed’s Bhel Poori
• Today’s Special: Francesco’s Tortelli
• Today’s Special: Seikichi’s Sushi
• Today’s Special: Ketkeo’s Khao Poon
• Today’s Special: Mike Fox’s French Toast
• Today’s Special: Zhang’s Squirrel Fish Dish
• Today’s Special: Jessica’s Gumbo
• Today’s Special: Kenny Kim’s Vegan Ramen
• Today’s Special: Ernesto’s Venezuelan Arepa
• Today’s Special: Corey’s “Prison Reformer” Frank
• Today’s Special: Bryan’s Butter Chicken Pie
• Today’s Special: Jared’s Super Supreme Baked Potato
• Today’s Special: Craig’s Breakfast Reuben
• Today’s Special: Sunny’s Mackerel Sashimi
• Today’s Special: Jamshed’s Lemon Chicken
• Today’s Special: Dave’s Navratan Curry
