Editor’s note: Jimmy Pearls is now available Thursday-Saturday at The Uptown Yolk in 7th Street Public Market. Order here. 

Two Virginia natives are launching a pop-up seafood concept that will make its debut at Common Market in South End on Friday, March 6 and Saturday, March 7. Chefs Daryl Cooper and Oscar James are naming the venture Jimmy Pearls, after the nickname for male crabs and the gem found in oysters.

Both chefs recently cooked in the Soul Food Sessions: Young Gunz dinner. James is a chef at The Yolk and runs a pop-up called Biscuit Jam, while Cooper put his food truck, The Cookin’ Coop, on hold to focus on Jimmy Pearls.

They’ll use the Common Market kitchen, taking over the food operations from 5 to 9 p.m. On the menu are dishes inspired by the chefs’ childhoods in the 757 area code: crab boil potatoes, cooked with a beer broth and tossed in a vegan seasoning; a crab roll with blue crab salad dressed in citrus and mayo; mussels with a collard green potlikker broth; a fried seafood platter with mixed shellfish and seasonal vegetables; and a dish called yock-a-mein. The seafood will be served with homemade tartar and cocktail sauces.

Yock-a-mein, a dish widely eaten in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, is a fusion of African-American and Asian cuisine. Lo mein noodles and a protein — beef, chicken, shrimp, or crab — are paired with a broth with a base of ketchup and soy sauce. The dish is topped with a boiled egg and raw onion.

“The 757 is real serious about their yock.” Cooper says of the dish, which he calls a struggle meal. Cooper and James will serve their version with blue crab or smoked chicken, and their tomato/soy sauce broth can be chicken or seafood-based.

Dishes will range from $6 to $12, and though the pop-up is only scheduled for one weekend currently, the chefs behind Jimmy Pearls hope to be recurring guests at Common Market.

“Our true goal of this pop up is to do enough so we can raise enough money and get enough notoriety where it can be brick and mortar,” Cooper says. Follow Jimmy Pearls on Instagram for the pop-up schedule.

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