12/24/2004 - Plenty of Soul: Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que is a quaint, cleaned-up copy of back-alley barbecue joints.
Maybe it's because I spent so many years in the South, but I have a decided fondness for barbecue restaurants, whether they be full-on 'que or a simple rib joint.
My favorite probably is the Renezvous in Memphis, Tenn. The ribs are fantastic, but the place is a trip, too, reached via a back alley not far from Beale Street that's lit by prison-yard-level floodlights to ward off I don't want to know who or what. You descend a flight of stairs in the venerable building into a basement, where you'll find the wizened members of the 'que corps bending over their work, clouds of smoke rising around them.
The Rendezvous came to mind as I dined at Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que at The District at Green Valley Ranch in Henderson. Lucille's is likewise quaint, likewise put together with what appears to be kitchen-table cast-off furniture. Lucille's is however, a cleaned-up, Disneyesque suburban copy of the Rendezvous and it's brethren.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. There would be if the food similarly lost some of the soul in the translation, but that's not the case.
Take the BBQ Tri-Tip dinner ($17.95), for example (and we'll overlook the fact that tri-tip is primarily a Western regional cut and most good barbecue comes from the Southeast and Texas). This beef was long smoked to give it a deep, down-home resonance, and ended up fork-tender. It was good by itself, but with a little bit of Lucille's sweet-smoky sauce (there's a spicier version available as well), this was terrific tri-tip.
Equally smoky and soulful were the St. Louis spare ribs ($19.95 for a half-rack, $22.95 for a full), the meatier and more substantial kin to baby-backs, which usually hog all the press. The presence of all that surface area really put the spotlight on the rub on these ribs, bringing out its peppery dash.
A broad variety of sides are chosen in pairs with Lucille's dinner, and they range from hick to nearly haute. Honey-roasted peanut slaw was a crisp mix of cabbage and various colors of peppers with a nicely balanced oil-and-vinegar toss and a generous sprinkle of peanuts on top, for an inviting variety of flavors and textures. Creamy cheese grits were indeed creamy--not often the case with this dish, which can turn on you quickly -- and again, peppers provided a flavor spark. Southern braised greens are spinach instead of the more assertive collards or mustard greens, so they were both mild and tender. And the requisite BBQ baked beans were firm and flavorful, thanks to a generous component of Lucille's sauce.
Dinners also include big flaky biscuits with a whipped butter they call apple butter but seems cinnamon-infused to me.
We ignored the gimmicky Dixie Egg Rolls for a starter and went right for the fried green tomatoes ($6.75), finding that the firmness of the tomatoes was well matched by a crisp cornmeal crust. They rested on a pool of roasted red-pepper cream that brightened them up considerably.
We expected slices when we ordered one of the evening's specials, Southern-fried dill pickles ($5.95), but were served spears instead. Big, crisp spears -- a definite improvement on the slices, because they stay crunchy instead of turning soggy -- that were so hot we had a hard time hanging on to them (especially as the cornmeal breading slid off), but we risked burned fingers and went back for more because they were so good. The ranch dressing on the side didn't add anything, but the Creole mustard dipping sauce was fab.
Nearing the end of our meal, we wondered if The Best Chocolate Cake Ever ($5.75) would live up to its name, and decided it didn't. But it was darned good.
Besides, Lucille's already gets top honors for the best mint julep ever. "Mint julep" and "good" often don't belong in the same sentence, but it can be done by a deft hand, and the juleps at Lucille's (available with a choice of whiskeys; we opted for Maker's Mark) are both minty and mellow.
And that's something I can't get at the Rendezvous.