BARBECUES FOR SERIOUS SOUTHERN FOOD EATERS

Right by the door of one of his restaurants, Fred Burrell keeps a scrapbook of his glory days at the Inn at the Park and other fancy Orange County joints.

You can leaf through photo after photo of him proudly displaying a huge banquet table or posing by an array of appetizers presented in the most finicky French style. Clearly the guy knows his way around a kitchen, and when he wears that French chef’s hat it’s no coy gimmick.

Fred Burrell is a long way from the Inn at the Park now. For the last several years, he’s had two restaurants of his own. He still serves daily blackboard specials--usually fish--and makes his own sausage and sells his own sauce.

That’s right, sauce, not sauces. There’s only one sauce at Burrell’s Rib Cage, barbecue sauce, and the sausage is hot links, and those fish specials are fried fish sandwiches with corn bread and one soul food side order of your choice. This is vernacular Southern cooking, done by someone who has not only experience and affection, but a trained approach.

Not that Burrell’s approach to barbecue is in any way Frenchified. Indeed, “rib tips ‘n’ ends”--a messy, exuberant dish of overbrowned ends of rib slabs sloshing in barbecue sauce--is about as far from French cooking as you can get. They are more or less the epitome of what the French are afraid they will find if they ever have to eat outside their own country.

There are two Rib Cages, the original in a classic rib joint location--a BBQ hut on a funky downtown Santa Ana side street--and the fancier Rib Cage 2 in a little shopping plaza nearby that is still not exactly Newport Beach’s Fashion Island.

Unassuming as they are, with scarcely any decoration but some beer signs, they attract a crowd of serious Southern food eaters. Rib Cage 2, in particular, brings in people from all over the county. And they are serious eaters, people who appreciate the fact that you never have to ask for a doggie bag; even if you’re eating on the premises, everything is served in a foam plastic box, so if there are any leftovers you just close the box and hit the road.

As a serious eater myself, I decided I wanted to try everything on the menu. At a lot of restaurants this might attract attention, but not at Burrell’s, where there is a glutton’s special called “potluck”: six meats, seven side dishes, two generous cubes of corn bread and a slice of pie. By the time I had worked my way though a potluck, however, I didn’t have room for the country ham, ham hocks or the chitterlings I’d meant to try on my return trip to the order counter. Sorry. I did my best.

Burrell’s disciplined and thoughtful approach means that the barbecue sauce, which comes on everything is a well-considered one--a mild tomatoey sauce that doesn’t get old fast. The meats are sensibly cooked, too, smoky and moist. The beef and pork ribs are particularly mellow and meaty. The hot links are definitely worth trying, flavored with (I’m guessing) sage, ginger and a lot of red pepper. The potluck included two thickly sliced kinds of meat, beef and pork, though only sliced beef is listed on the menu.

Just about everything in the meat department comes either as a sandwich or a dinner--the former with a hamburger bun and one side order, the latter as a larger portion with two side orders. The only thing I happen to have tried as a sandwich was red snapper, which was quite good with a classic crunchy corn meal breading and a tiny pot of tartar sauce.

Side orders--which, like the desserts, can be ordered in three sizes--are more extensive than the usual coleslaw/potato salad selection. There’s dirty rice, flavored with meat juices and shreds of deeply browned pork; collards, also with some pork in them (made somewhat the better with a dash of white vinegar at the table); the traditional overdone candied yams; amazingly yellow macaroni and cheese, puffy soft and mellow; plain black-eyed peas, and both potato and macaroni salad.

The best of the side dishes are “Fred’s baked beans,” sweet-sour with vinegar and (I reckon) brown sugar, brightened with red pepper. These are considerable beans, not just your usual BBQ side order; I’ve judged a couple of chili contests they would have won.

Desserts include two pies, apple and sweet potato, a sloppy peach cobbler served hot in a cup, and fresh-baked poundcake.

The only thing I have found to complain about was the fact that on a busy Saturday night the chicken was lukewarm by the time it was served. Prices are in the usual barbecue range: sandwiches $3.75-$4.50, dinners $5.95 to $7.95. A slab of ribs is $11.95 and the “potluck” special is $18.95.

BURRELL’S RIB CAGE 2

1701 E. McFadden Ave., Santa Ana

(714) 541-3073

Open for lunch and dinner daily. No credit cards.

BURRELL’S RIB CAGE

305 N. Hesperian St., Santa Ana

(714) 541-3062

Open for lunch and dinner daily. No credit cards.