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View the
Frank and Joe's Southern Smokehouse Menu
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Frank
and Joe's is located at 110 E. Colorado in Monrovia |
Storefront, from the other side, offers outside dining |
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To
our left, the Frank and Joe's Southern Smokehouse Special Board chef |
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Pork
Chop appetizer |
Hush
Puppies |
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Create A Combo featuring Jambalaya as the entree, with a bowl of Crawfish
Corn Chowder as the side, served with hush puppies |
Cajun
Quad comes with hush puppies on the side |
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Clockwise, red beans and rice at 9o'clock, shrimp etouffee, crawfish corn
chowder, gumbo |
Another angle, shows the depth of the 8 oz. cup |
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DOT COM DINING
A Look At San
Gabriel Valley Restaurants by SanGabrielValleyMenus.com
Frank and Joe’s Southern Smokehouse
Will Spice Up Your Life
By Bill Coburn
The
subject of this week’s restaurant spotlight, Frank and Joe’s Southern
Smokehouse, is a restaurant in transition. I first started enjoying this
restaurant as Cajun Way Cafe, up in Sierra Madre. Then it moved to Monrovia,
and recently it changed owners, with long-time employee Frank, and his brother
Joe, buying the place. They’ve changed the name, added some new menu items, and
beefed up the entertainment schedule. While they’ve added new items and
continue to do so, they’ve kept the best of the Cajun Way’s menu items, and I
enjoyed my most recent visit as much as any other time I’ve eaten there.
Frank and
Joe’s is located at 110 East Colorado in Monrovia and you can call for
reservations at (626) 357-1616. The building used to be a garage, then it was a
Mexican restaurant called Ely’s, before becoming Cajun Way and now Frank and
Joe’s. The atmosphere is casual, with lots of fun stuff to look at hanging on
the walls in the bar area, and a larger dining room area toward the back of the
building. The bar area has several TVs, and it’s a good place to enjoy major
sporting events while sipping on a cocktail, or choosing from a wide selection
of beers, including southern beers from the Dixie brewery, or a selection of
Abita beers, also apparently a well known Southern beer. And starting in
August, the bar will have entertainment Tuesday through Saturday nights, with
blues bands for the most part on Friday and Saturday nights.
We
started with an appetizer of Frank and Joe’s “Pork” Wings, on which you can get
Hot and Spicy Sauce, Sweet and Tangy Sauce, or Honey BBQ Sauce. I split this
with my son, so we got both Hot and Spicy Sauce (for me) and Sweet and Tangy
Sauce (for him), and they were both delicious. I could have stood a little more
heat on the Hot and Spicy, but I like things hot. One of the things I noticed
about our entire meal though, I didn’t feel a need to add the hot sauce, as
there was plenty of spice and flavor to everything we ordered. Nothing was
overpoweringly hot, but it tasted so good, I didn’t want to take a chance on
making it worse by adding the heat that I generally like to add. The pork wings
appetizer is one of the new items on the menu; we saw someone at the next table
eating it, and thought, that looks pretty good, let’s try it. I’m glad we did,
it’s a good-sized appetizer, and really quite a good way to start the meal.
I ordered
what’s known as the Cajun Quad, (a bargain at $11) which is four 8 oz. cups of
Cajun-style food: red beans and rice (with lots of Andouille sausage added in),
crawfish corn chowder, gumbo, and your choice of etouffee (shrimp or crawfish).
I chose a shrimp etouffee. Keelan wanted the gumbo, and said it was very good.
I’ve had the gumbo there several times, and it has been consistently good. I
have to admit, I haven’t had a lot of Cajun food, and so I shouldn’t compare
this to other places, but the crawfish corn chowder, which is loaded with
crawfish, was something I didn’t expect to like when I first tried it, and boy
was I wrong. It’s great. It’s one of my favorite dishes every time I visit.
Nice and thick, lots of crawfish, and the flavor is out of this world. I also
enjoyed the shrimp etouffee, served over rice, which had a generous helping of
shrimp. The Cajun Quad also comes with your choice of a side dish, coleslaw,
potato salad, hush puppies, daily vegetables or fries. We chose the hush
puppies, little balls of cornbread, deep fried until golden brown. I’ve had
hush puppies at a few places, but none as good as Frank and Joe’s.
Katie
ordered off the Create A Combo menu, where you get to choose two items from a
selection of eleven different items, with one item as your entrée, and the other
as your side. The Create A Combo meals are served with potato salad. Katie
ordered the Jambalaya as her main entrée with a bowl of the crawfish corn
chowder as her side order. The Jambalaya is a very tasty mix of Andouille
sausage, fresh Cajun sausage, pork loin, onions, bell pepper and rice.
We have
eaten at Cajun Way several times, but this was our first venture in since they
have become Frank and Joe’s. They have added several new menu items, including
a Porterhouse Steak, T-Bone steak, NY Strip steak, Filet Mignon, and Tri-tip.
Pork Ribs (Baby-Back or St. Louis), Beef Ribs, Pork Chops, even a tri-tip salad,
are also all new menu items. But they’ve hung onto my favorites, and are also
known for their outstanding Po’Boy sandwiches, as well.
There’s
quite a selection of desserts, including my favorite, Bread Pudding with Frank
and Joe’s Bourbon Sauce. Blackberry and Peach Cobblers, Pecan Pie (with Jim
Beam Bourbon), several choices of ice cream, Pecan Pralines, Praline Cheesecake,
and traditional Southern Beignets.
Frank and
Joe tell me that they have several more exciting new additions to the menu
coming soon, in addition to those they’ve already added. They are currently
developing their new website, and when the menu is complete, you’ll be able to
find their menu there, as well as an entertainment schedule. In the meantime,
you can find their current menu at
www.sangabrielvalleymenus.com/frankandjoes. While you’re there, you can
download a coupon good for 10% off your bill on your next visit.
Frank and
Joe’s is one of my favorite local restaurants, and I encourage you to give it a
try. It’s a great place to eat, and it’s also a fun spot to just relax with a
beer and enjoy some great music, and catch up on what’s happening in the sports
world as well.
Bill Coburn is owner of SanGabrielValleyMenus.com, a
restaurant website featuring dozens of restaurant’s menus, as well as
downloadable coupons. He has nearly 20 years experience in the restaurant
business, and has been eating for much longer than that. |
