Shaw-nae’s House

Apr 5th, 2024

Just go and feel the joy and level of caring Shawnae has put into every detail of her food, the vibe, the service, the atmosphere. What a fulfilling experience.
Apr 5th, 2024

Utterly disappointed! Understand it bothers me to write this, as we wrestled with posting a review. Love supporting black businesses, but when we fall short of expectations it is thought to be cruel or unsupportive to speak the truth. My Husband and I had research this spot based on a TicTok food blog. We were very excited about having a good soul food experience outside of our normal travels. As we came from Brooklyn to rugged lands of Shaolin to represent and show love! We were seated by a nice young man, his service throughout the experience was fine, no complaints with him as he didn't prepare the food. Starting with the drinks, kept it simple, ice tea and lemonade. Neither were sweet nor cold, when my husband asked for ice, he was told, "at present there was no ice at the time". Mind you we were amongst the first patrons to enter and be seated. I may say, the cornbread was excellent! Still nursing warm lemonade and ice tea. After further review of the menu, I was confounded that there was not any combination of GRITS and anything to be found. As grits are a southern staple. Moving on, the menu seemed to more of a Caribbean and Southern fusion style menu. Our food arrived, I got the oxtails with white rice and Mac n Cheese, my husband got some version of Chicken wings and originally asked for Jerk chicken rice, which was unavailable, so he settled for the Mac N cheese, mind you they just opened! The Oxtails were extremely salty and seemed to be more Caribbean than southern style. The Mac n cheese had 3 types of cheeses in it and was also somewhat bland. My husband had no real complaints about the chicken other than it tasted like it was rolled in waffle batter with brown sugar. As he's not a chef, how he made that acute distinction was astounding to me. As we all have been raised on these dishes and culinary styles of cooking most if not all our lives. I was truly looking for a great dining experience. I'm sure Shawnae wasn't in the kitchen so this isn't a slight on her personal cooking, just this dining experience. Maybe we ordered the wrong dishes, as others seemed to be enjoying their food. We just didn't have that same experience. Also we noticed all of the accolades and certs in the window. My husband made the suggestion to should be shown in a shadow boxes, it would've made for a nicer presentation. While I won't discourage others not to support and experience Shawnae's house. I'm sharing our experience. Maybe in the future we may try again. Just don't know when. Parking: No parking, come early.
Apr 1st, 2024

Mar 23rd, 2024

OMG! I don't even know where to start. I've this restaurant on my list for a few weeks now. I left work from New Jersey and found lots of parking spots. When I walked in I felt like I went to visit my Aunty. Shawnea opened the door and welcomed in. It's a small cozy restaurant, the place doesn't smell like food it smells like eucalyptus candles and the food OMG! This is the best soul food I've ever had. I got Mac and cheese, collard greens, candy yams, oxtail, sauteed shrimps, and the strawberry corn bread. I'm in heaven!!!! I'll definitely be back.
Mar 23rd, 2024