Bonnie Jean's

My friend and I were planning to have lunch at Asia Cafe today. Unfortunately, it was closed, which was disappointing since I wanted to introduce her to the joys of Nem Khao (Laotian fried rice). However, a good thing came out of this. My friend suggested a soul food place a few miles away. My mind was racing...Ooh, soul food. Never been in a soul food place before. Fried food! Hell yeah! Gotta blog it. I'm hungry! Oh my gosh! Soul food! My churning internal monologue lasted a mere five seconds. My mind was made up - forget everything else!

After following her car up Market, passing Federal and Euclid along the way, we ended up 54th St. There it was, Bonnie Jean's Soul Food Cafe, located in a really run down looking strip mall straight out of the 60's. To be honest, I'd never been in this area before. Maybe driving through when I used to take the surface streets to State, but yeah. This was all new to this Filipina chick from the South Bay. No glitzy signs. No chain restaurant logos. Handpainted windows advertising the specials. This was my kind of place! Click here to see their website. Reviews from Yelp are here .

You can't see it but there was a car on the far far left that was a shiny maroon Cadillac Seville with some killer silver rims. Yes, my friends, it was a Pimpmobile. Its owner was this guy wearing a black turtleneck in a black leather jacket with wide and pointy lapels (think of Lamont Sanford's no good shifty friend, Rollo). He must not have been a very rich pimp since he was using a pay phone!!! Shouldn't successful pimps be sporting a Blackberry or an iPhone? Okay...maybe he wasn't a pimp for those of you that think I'm stereotyping. Maybe he was just a cell phone-less stylin' guy with a cool car. Yeah...
Ooh, chicken and waffles! Must try that next time since the closest Roscoe's is in LA. Hot wings for 50 cents? Hmmmm...
The store front:

Oops, this picture should have been a few pics later. Well, walking in, it doesn't even look like a restaurant. It looks like a combination of someone's store and living room. The wall on the left when you enter had beveled edge square mirrors. Kinda 70's. Like the family room in my parents' house. The other walls are painted a deep red and covered with posters of famous African Americans, like Billie Holiday and Miles Davis (both were also featured in their bathroom). There were also posters of President Barack Obama and African American themed artwork. If you look on that shelf below, there was a black Angel. I really liked seeing that. Most angels are depicted as white with blond hair and blue eyes. It was nice seeing an angel of color. There was also a shelf that had board games that you could play while waiting for your food. In fact, the young couple who sat near us were playing Connect Four.

Originally, we sat in a small table for two in the back, next to this wall. We ended up moving because the table was wobbly. I liked this wall - it had (I assume the owner's) family photos giving this place a nice and homey feel. The atmosphere was very chill. We were greeted right away by a super nice lady. She gave us time to look over the menu.

Here's the view from our relocated table. You can see a rack of greeting cards - they had handmade cards with African Americans featured in their designs; some were religious in nature. There's that mirrored wall! In the foreground is a table were you can play chess. It wasn't too crowded today. It was Saturday afternoon and we were having a pretty late lunch, around 1:15'ish.

This is the view when you walk in. There's a bookshelf (books are 50% off by the way). Behind the gift souvenir display was the cash register. This place also sold these really cool bags that were handmade out of reall vinyl records. The two that I remember were George Benson's "Give Me the Night" and Peabo Bryston (forgot the song). One side of the bag had the vinyl record while the other side had the album cover. Both sides were shellacked and riveted with metal studs. There was also a sturdy net that formed the sides and bottom of the bags. Those were going for $65. Near our table, they had mouse pads for sale which featured African Americans playing golf, plus memorabilia from Historically Black fraternities and sororities (key chains and such). Very cool indeed. Click photo for closer look at the menu:
I was craving the catfish and upon learning that the $5 special was catfish, (this changes daily by the way), decided to get that. In fact, we both got today's special, thus only one photo of the complete meal which consisted of breaded cornmeal catfish nuggets, rice and gravy, a bread roll and a side of green beans with potatoes. The beans were kind of blah - the canned variety. They were also kind of cold. The rice was very soft which I didn't like. The grains were kind of mushy and didn't stick together. Maybe this was Uncle Ben's or something. OMG, if it was, please pump my stomach now like Rod Stewart!!! The gravy was all right, but I would have preferred to eat that with mashed potatoes. I don't like my rice to be wet. I didn't really finish the rice but polished off the catfish!!!

Close up of the goodass catfish nugget which you must try if you ever go here:

The hot wings were 50 cents each. I could have eaten a whole bowl of these. I was reminded of Chris Rock's line in Keenan Ivory Wayan's classic blaxploitation spoof , "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka"" when he's ordering food from Isaac Hayes(the rib chef was NFL star turned actor, Jim Brown).



"C'mon, just one riiiib!"

Here's my friend reaching for the hot sauce, which wasn't really hot:

Our cutlery was mismatched. That in itself wasn't a very big deal. As long as my utensils pick up food, I don't care what I'm given. Today was different. I was very excited because the knife pattern was our wedding flatware pattern!!! That, my friend, is Oneida's Pacific Tide pattern. I bet it's discontinued now. I chose that in 1994 after Bert and I got engaged. We liked it because of the wave like pattern and also because it matched our China, which was Mikasa's Wedding Band Platinum pattern. Because our Filipino relatives were "kuripot" (aka 'tight', 'cheapasses', 'stingy'), we never got any settings for our wedding gifts. Instead, I returned all the crap I didn't want (like 4 other slow cookers, platters I never registered for and whatnot) and used that money to buy a complete set of the flatware and accompanying hostess set and all at the Mikasa Outlet. So yay! Pacific Tide spotting! At a soul food restaurant of all places!

One last look at the window:

Picked up this post card before we left, but the photo was taken at home:

Mmmm...I saw the reviews on Yelp and those fried mac and cheese nuggets were referred to (more than once I might add) as "Fried Crack". That descriptions makes it all the more enticing to me.

Next time we go, we're definitely getting this Soul in a Bowl! Everything just sounds so good! I want to try the chitlins. Yes, I know what they're made of. If Filipinos can eat "bulaklak" (which literally means "flower" but are really cut up and fried intestines; also known as "bituka"), then I can eat chitlins. And I want to try the fried gizzards too. My mom used to make that stuff. when we were small. Those and fried livers with onions. My dad, who used to be a Navy cook, knows how to make soul food. Most Filipinos and blacks were stewards back in the early 60's. That's how my dad can make American food as well as a few soul food dishes (ham hocks with black eyed peas and collards for one). My next target - Sister Pee Wee's (another soul food joint) and Magnolia's.