Add Your Review
Thanks for visiting Cooking with Chef JJ. We'd love to have your feedback!
Our Latest Reviews
Let Him Cook Vol 4 Tickets
My wife and I attended Friendsgiving 2025. We appreciate the care taken in setting up the restaurant for this event. The cocktail and appetizers were amazing. We also thoroughly enjoyed the goat (most tender and flavorful I have ever had) and the brussel sprouts. My wife paid you the greatest compliment by informing me that your sweet potato pie was better than mine. That was a blow to my ego! :) We also appreciated the gift of "Little Fat Yammies". My wife just ordered more.
The Head of the Table (VIP)
The Cookout was above and beyond expectations! The food, entertainment and crowd was a 10 out of 10. And being independent of NYCWFF gave The Cookout an even hotter vibe. Salute to Chef JJ and team for great execution. Looking forward to the next one! Cheers ?
Let Him Cook Vol 4 Tickets
Full disclosure: I have been a guest at every Let Him Cook this year. While Vol. 4 is the most recent of these remarkable dinners, my review will cover Volumes 2, 3, and 4. Because everyone who has yet to benefit from Chef JJ Johnson's and his team's cooking ought to know the breadth, depth, and excellence of what's proffered at Let Him Cook. The meals served are thoughtfully made, creatively conceived, and combine classic ingredients and techniques with those that are newly discovered and recently created. Example: tres leches cake, Vol. 2's dessert, is a longtime favorite of mine. That said, I'd never enjoyed it made with ripe plantains and meringue. First bite took me to the first time I tasted it, and on my birthday (when Vol. 2 occurred), the cake was enhanced and more elegant, while still tasting of the traditional, buttery treat I've long known. I'm not, by nature, a dessert person because salt and savory are my favorites. That said, the flan at Vol. 3 was next level in rich vanilla and luxurious caramel, and Vol. 4's purple sweet potato pie reintroduced this girl to a pastry I thought I knew well. That may be so; I simply didn't know it to be sophisticated AND comforting. Chef JJ and the team elevate yellowfin tuna, pernil, roasted chicken, curry goat, ribeye, and, most recently, turkey wings with heart and unconventional seasonings. Each protein is roasted, seared, grilled with perfection (read: for the correct amounts of time to the ideal temperatures) to ensure the textures are enhanced by the cooking. To wit, Vol. 3's third course included a pernil (roasted pork shoulder) immersed in garlic and oregano, accompanied by a roasted garlic jus and topped with crispy chicharron. Chef JJ made something where luxury met the taste of home. While we're on third courses, the other night at Vol. 4, guests at the table at which I sat were overwhelmed by the stuffed turkey wings and the glazed ribeye. I heard more than one person request more of both. While I was mostly leaning into the curry goat, which was floral, sweet, and tropical in flavor, I have a newfound love of red meat (heretofore only enjoying hamburgers, meatballs, and meat loaf) thanks to this tender, rich, and smoky-sweet ribeye. My favorite things on most restaurant menus exist in the first course/appetizer sections. In my experience, this is where creativity plays with the most fresh, most rare, and newest ingredients. Let Him Cook Vols. 2, 3, and 4 do not disappoint here. Vol. 4's first course smoked trout on savory, slightly rough cornbread and the remarkable crisp, smoky, spicy, and juicy jerk shrimp could have been the entire meal. I would have been thrilled. Real talk: I'm still thinking about the chopped cheese empanada served as a second during Vol. 3. Never has ground turkey tasted like it did. No chopped cheese I've eaten since holds a candle to that one. Vol. 3 also included a remarkable tomato salad. Heirloom tomatoes are one of summer's loveliest tastes, and often they're lost in dressings, aggressive chopping, and mandolin slicing. At Chef JJ's table, the tomatoes, despite being accompanied by pickled onions (a perfect and delicious frequent accompaniment to plates here), queso fresco, and finely whipped avocado crema, were welcome co-stars on the plates. Chefs and their teams may give short shrift to side dishes when the main courses are comprised of impressive (read: expensive) proteins. This is never the case at FIELDTRIP and Let Him Cook. The goat roasted in banana leaf during Vol. 2, Vol. 3's aforementioned pernil and roasted chicken salsa verde, and Auntie Lane's curry goat, stuffed turkey wings, and glazed ribeye at Vol. 4 shared stage, if you will, with long beans adobo-style, Carolina gold rice, crispy yucca, caramelized sweet plantains, honey Brussel sprouts, impeccable collard greens, and arroz con gandules. If I was going to doggy bag anything from the table, it would be these. Each one accompanies beautifully the primary dish, while existing as its own delicious, complex, satisfying taste. In a year full of strife and concern around the world, the culinary experiences provided by Chef JJ Johnson and the team at FIELDTRIP mean more, somehow. The hectic, noise-driven, ever-expanding, wildly unpredictable city of New York is blessed to house Chef JJ Johnson, his team, and their kingdom. Drop by FIELDTRIP for rice dishes like nothing you've ever taste. Attend Let Him Cook to remember how exceptional dinner can be.