Review of 'Joe's Southern Kitchen'

We wanted so much to love this place. There was so many promises: Southern fried chicken and ribs, come on, tasty or what? But, no, cruelly, our wishes would be dashed like so much rain on a lonely cobble street…ok, it was not that bad, but it was certainly disappointing.

Joe's is right in the heart of tourism-central between Covent Garden and Leicester Square. Warning one. The interior is quite western-y with a funky Coke neon sign on the brick wall as you enter and a cow skull made up of parts above the bar. The bar stretches almost the length of the long narrow restaurant. We were seated up on the mezzanine - an even narrower floor accessed by a circular iron staircase from the main floor - where we overlooked the bar for much of our, admittedly, short stay. We were off to see a movie so were in a bit of a hurry…

The menu is full of the usual suspects but my companion chose to go with the main draw here: Joe's Southern Fried Chicken (£12.50). Very juicy and quite tasty with only complaint being that it was not exactly piping hot when it got to us. This is a problem we saw with all of our dishes except my “Corn bread with paprika butter and green tomato chutney” (£2.95) which was piping hot, moist and very tasty. My main dish of “8 hour slow roast beef short ribs” (£16.95) was also served lukewarm but was massive - A single large rib with a good chunk of meat stuck to it (the cole slaw that came with it was tasty too). My side of fries (also luke warm; £3.95) were quite good - crispy on the outside and floury on the inside (as they should be).

We availed ourselves of the non-alcoholic drinks on offer with my “Joe's Creamy Lilt” (£3) extremely coconut-y and not very Lilt-y (but still quite tasty). My companion tried the “Iced Tea”(£3) which was done correctly - brewed as you would normal tea and put on ice.

Service was acceptable if not overly friendly. We did admire the bartender's throwing of things in the air…

Discussing the meal afterwards we did not think it very likely we would try it again as there are other offerings in the city that seem to be much better. But if we are in the area and have a craving for US southern food we might again be persuaded…I hear the Popcorn Shrimp are very good…

Rating: “Average, but who wants to be average?”

Review Date: 2014-05-31


Cuisine: American/British

Address: 34 King Street, London WC2E 8JD

Public Transport: TUBE Leicester Square, TUBE Covent Garden

Location: London (England) - Covent Garden

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Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7240 4008

URL: http://joessouthernkitchen.co.uk/