Food for the soul

“Dang! This straight-up tastes like my mammaw’s home cooking,” my friend Christy exclaimed after her first few bites at Sharon’s Cookhouse.

Don’t take it from a Yankee girl like me, but if you doubt the authenticity of the soul food at Sharon’s, take it from my friend, the Louisiana native: “Sharon’s serves up real Southern home cookin'.”

When I decided to review Sharon’s, I took it as a sign that my friend from Shreveport would be visiting simultaneously. After an all-day Rock Creek hike, we arrived at Sharon’s sun-baked and famished, ready for their famous homemade sweet tea.

We arrived only an hour before closing time and stayed well past 8:30 p.m., but our waitress, Claudia, was gracious and hospitable, proving that even the service at Sharon’s exudes a Southern charm.

The menu is simple, with enough choices to keep it interesting. Home-style dinners range from a full rack of pork ribs ($22.75)—Sharon’s was voted one of the West’s best barbecue places in Sunset magazine in 2004—to Texas Chili ($7.50) and includes two side dishes and corn bread (regular or fried jalapeño). The soul-sides can be ordered separately ($2.50) and come with a piece of corn bread. If you’re not all that hungry, this is an economical (and filling) option.

On our visit, we sampled the Dirty Rice ($8.75), which isn’t made with ground beef, but with sausage and imitation crab meat. Despite being atypical, it’s tasty, and the seasoning makes it rich and savory, but not overly spicy. The catfish fillet ($12.50) is breaded and crispy, fried to perfection. The salty crispiness complements the flaky white fish. Coarsely chopped cabbage and lots of carrots make the coleslaw taste fresh—a welcome change from the slimy slaw that’s often offered at other establishments.

The potato salad rivals my German mom’s, which is about the highest compliment I can give. The green salad is just that: iceberg lettuce, carrots and cherry tomatoes, with the dressing on the side. Simple, but refreshingly good; the lettuce was crisp and the balsamic vinaigrette was very tasty. The sweet potatoes are candied and melt in your mouth, and the mashed potatoes are homemade, and without a single lump to be found.

The black-eyed peas are seasoned with ham, but the meat flavor isn’t overpowering. When I asked to try them, Christy was quick to show me the right way to eat them with corn bread, between stories of gators and quicksand back home. “You dip your corn bread in the black-eyed pea juice and mmmmmhmmmmm.”

Don’t miss the unbelievably good macaroni and cheese and the jalapeño corn bread. They epitomize feel-good, down-home soul food. The corn bread, shaped like small pancakes, has pieces of whole kernel corn and red pepper. Sweet and spicy, this is the best corn bread I’ve ever had, hands down. For dessert, try the sweet potato pie, if you haven’t already unbuttoned your top button to make sitting easier.

When you make the trip to Sharon’s try going in the evening, when the warm breezes sweep over the outskirts of town, and sit outside. The location, surrounded by orchards, allows the restaurant to have outdoor seating that isn’t inundated by exhaust fumes and traffic noise.

The restaurant’s outdoor fountain, surrounded by flowers and plants, provides ambience, and the latticed barbecue area is aesthetically pleasing. If you’re lucky, you may be regaled with stories of Louisiana by Little Joe or Sharon. After your meal, while you’re sipping sweet tea on the patio while being caressed by a warm Chico breeze, you may find it difficult to leave and waddle back to your car.