Larkin’s Joint Offers Food for the Soul

For starters, my friends and I were given black-eyed pea caviar and pita chips that comes complimentary with each meal. It’s a fresh, light bean salad with a kick that comes with the satisfying crunch from the crispy pitas. I ordered the Warm Okra and Heirloom Tomato Salad ($9) that had three fat chunks of red, yellow and green tomatoes in a spring mix with battered okra. The tomatoes were firm, ripe and full of flavor that went well with the deep fried okra. My boyfriend ordered the Blue Cheese Wedge Salad ($7). The lettuce was so refreshing and crisp, I finally get why it's called Iceberg lettuce. Next came a basket full of mini-cornbread muffins to the table. Still warm, the cornbread was slightly sweet, moist and fluffy, with a bit of crunchy crust on the outside. They’re the perfect size if you just want a bite to save room and there’s plenty of them if you really want to get a fill of cornbread.

I’d heard a lot of good things about the greens. “The greens aren’t your daddy’s greens,” points out Mackey. “I’ve always hated it when greens are so cooked down and they are like mush.”

Larkin’s greens are well cooked but still have a snap to them. They are tangy, simmered with tomatoes and onions and have a good amount of heat that makes your mouth tingle. I could’ve eaten a whole plate of these on their own, but my side of greens was accompanied with an entrée of catfish ($15). The catfish was fried perfectly: flaky and moist inside, crunchy without a hint of grease on the outside. The golden cornmeal breading has a hint of cinnamon and the granular texture compliments the fish’s tender flesh. My boyfriend, who’d just been to an all-you-can-eat fish fry in his Texas hometown wouldn’t stop eating my catfish. In exchange, I went for his BB-Q Tiger Shrimp ($19). It’s freaking amazing - five jumbo suckers covered in a thick sauce that’s more like a smoky molé. It came with Aunt Carolyn’s potato salad, made from new potatoes and green onions. It’s a little sweet and light on the mayo - a perfect cooling side dish to partner with the spiciness of the shrimp.

My friend ordered the Smothered Pork Chop, an inch-thick piece of farm-raised meat that’s seared and covered in white gravy and accompanied with red beans and rice. It was a good-sized chop with a smoky flavor that wasn’t overwhelmed by the gravy.

The Good Ole’ Fried Chicken is the juiciest damn chicken I’ve ever eaten. My goodness, get an extra napkin! The dish came with one large thigh piece and a drumstick that were fried in a cast iron pan. The breading has a hint of sweetness and covers the chicken just enough – it’s not a heaping of oily, fried batter.

I already mentioned the sides that were paired with the main dishes above, but you can also choose from baby red mashed potaotes, garlic roasted corn on the cob and mac & cheese (we dubbed it crack & cheese - it's that addictive).

Lastly, one of the most interesting dishes is the Candied Yam Ravioli ($12). The pillowy pockets are bathed in a light butter cream sauce. It’s a fun, tasty dish – an adventurous take on pumpkin ravioli.

For dessert, I had Mama’s Banana Pudding ($7). The pudding is creamy and flavorful with slices of banana and Nilla wafers. I thought there was barely room for dessert but this was so light, I couldn’t help but eat the whole thing. Other desserts include the Black ‘n Blue cobbler (made with black and blueberries), sweet potato pie and Strawberry Short Red Velvet Cake ($9). Here, the chef has really created something special: a Red Velvet shortbread topped with fresh strawberries, strawberry coulis and vanilla cream that’s so good even my friends who don’t like sweets couldn’t help themselves.

As of now, the team is still working on getting a beer and wine license. They expect to have one in the next three to four months. In the meantime, it’s BYOB.

Mackey’s dream started to become a reality when he came upon a for sale sign on a dilapidated building on Colorado Blvd. “When I saw it, I just knew this was where I was supposed to be. We really like Eagle Rock. The streets are wide, the traffic’s not so bad. The people are nice over here...I had already put an offer on a space downtown - a huge scary 4000-foot monstrosity – but I was driving by and I saw this place with the wraparound porch. Even though it was falling over, it seemed perfect,” he describes.

He enlisted fellow classmate Rowan from the Kitchen Academy to consult on the renovation and construction of the 1911 house. At the same time, he got Rowan on board to act as sous chef. The three partners collaborated on the design, pouring their energy into rehabbing the house into a restaurant and landscaping the outside. The warm, antique décor is inviting and comforting right down to the green crystal candy dish on the bar and the mysteriously inviting painting of a topless woman that belonged to Mackey’s grandfather.

“A lot of the experience has to do with this house. It’s a really special place,” points out Rowan.

Chairs are mismatched and Mason jars serve as the glasses for sweet tea and homemade punch. It’s a scheme that doesn’t feel forced or tacky, but feels familiar – a place you can let your hair down. The dining area features a quaint chandelier and beautiful stained glass windows, creating the feeling you are eating dinner not in a restaurant, but in Mackey’s own parlour room. It’s a restaurant you can actually sit down with your family -- even kids too -- and not feel like everyone has to be on their best behavior.

Notes Mackey, “We just want it to be fun, where people can relax and have a good time. Especially for me, when I was growing up, soul food restaurants had good food, but the ambiance wasn’t there. You sat in a rickety plastic chair eating off a Styrofoam plate. It was great but it wasn’t anything to look at.”

Says McBride, “We knew it was going to be a ton of work, but we had this feeling in our bones that this was it. A lot of inspiration came from The Color Purple. We watched it a lot to get ideas.”

There’s plenty to look at inside the dining room. The walls are currently adorned with still photos for a temporary exhibition. The restaurant will host different local artists to decorate the walls and will have live acoustic music in the future.

“We definitely thought about the history of juke joints,” explains Mackey. “They were made up of found items that were put together. Everything in here is made that way, like the tables were made from the old doors of the house.”

To Mackey, his cooking is more than just about the food. “People pass it off as Southern food or Cajun, they don’t want to say it’s soul food. They tiptoe around it because it’s a touchy subject, but that’s the legacy of this food. These Africans were displaced in this country and they took the cuisine they knew and altered them with what they had. Soul food is something from nothing. It was produced from the scraps that were thrown out that the slave masters wouldn’t use. And a cuisine was created out of it. I want to give respect to that cuisine, along with how it was created -- and that’s what made all this,” he says, looking around the Craftsman house.

With my tummy and heart full from the comforting meal and atmosphere, Larkin’s Joint is truly a whole lotta something from nothing.

Larkin’s Joint
1496 Colorado Blvd
Eagle Rock, CA 90041
(323) 254-0934

Hours this week during the soft opening are:

5 pm - 9:30 pm, Thursday-Saturday
11 am-3 pm, Sunday Father’s Day Brunch

They’ll begin serving lunch next week with full business hours as:

11:30 am – 10 pm, Tuesday-Saturday
11 am – 3 pm, Sunday brunch

All photos © An Tran 2007