For lunch one day I headed out to Joey’s Smokin’ BBQ in Manhattan Beach. I had heard that Luke Walton of the Los Angeles Lakers was somehow tied to the restaurant, which actually made me a little worried, but I still wanted some BBQ. The place was pretty small and other than the Lakers championship pennant, there was really nothing else denoting that this was in any way related to Luke Walton. Besides, half the restaurants in LA have Lakers pennants (I later found out that Walton essentially wrote a big fat check to get the place started, but it pretty much runs without him). With this in mind, my fears of a generic BBQ restaurant were slightly assuaged.
The menu had a lot of good-looking unvegan foods, which is always a safe bet with BBQ. I skipped right over the sandwiches and my eyes made their way over to the straight-up meat. I ordered the 1/4 Lazy Smoked Chicken, which came with cornbread and a side. For my side, I chose mac and cheese, then waited outside to see what my order would produce.
When my food came, 1/4 chicken really seemed like an understatement. I’m pretty sure they gave me at least half of a chicken. I started digging in and was pretty impressed. The meat was juicy and had decent flavor. It definitely needed more BBQ sauce, which I had to grab from a pump inside. The mac and cheese was pretty good and the cornbread was nice and moist.
Unfortunately, there was no way I could tackle all that chicken in one sitting. I only hoped that it would retain its juiciness after spending some time in my fridge and microwave.
Despite my animosity towards the Lakers, I have to admit Joey’s had some pretty damn good BBQ.