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MoBay Uptown is a beacon of home cooking amidst the KFCs and McDonald's that dominate the area, a restaurant whose high energy and charm match that of its location on one of the city's most engaging streets. The fare is a mix of upscale Caribbean and soul food—delightfully gelatinous oxtail stew shares the menu with crunchy fried chicken. Prices are higher than usual for this cuisine, but it's worth paying a premium to eat in the low-lit, warm-toned room filled with an Island-inflected soundtrack and the din of happy diners. Not all dishes are winners. Gummy fried cod cakes are as heavy as hockey pucks; jerk chicken's delicious spicy sauce, unfortunately, fails to permeate the meat, which aside for the part just beneath the sauce-coated skin is dry and flavorless. Candied yams, however, are sweet, mushy, and delicious, packed with cinnamon, and the Jamaican staple bammy—crisp fried yucca—is their perfect foil. Meaty, unusually tender baby back ribs are slathered in honey barbecue sauce spiked with rum, which tempers the sweetness of the sauce. Rum returns in MoBay's aptly-named Rummy Rum Cake. As light as angel food, it packs an alcoholic punch that will make you think twice about an after-dinner drink at the glowing red bar. — JJ Goode

Jerk chicken, $15; oxtail stew, $16.95; baby back ribs with honey rum barbecue sauce, $22.95; rummy rum cake, $6