RESTAURANT REVIEW : Big Flavors at Mini-Mall’s 2 Tiny Eateries

The corner of Vanowen Street and Hazeltine Avenue in Van Nuys is twice blessed. In one little mini-mall are two tiny restaurants with big hearts: Mom’s Bar-B-Q House and Gee, I Can’t Believe It’s Fish. Coincidentally, both have female chefs from Louisiana. Eat your heart out, Paul Prudhomme.

Mom’s Bar-B-Q House isn’t exactly Cajun, of course, even though Mom--Genevia Fontenette--is from Lake Charles. Her restaurant is nestled into a corner of the mall, about as tiny a place as the law allows, and you wouldn’t go for the decor. The lighting makes me think of a police station, and the chairs are anything but comfy.

So, who cares? This is some of the Valley’s tastiest barbecue: mesquite-infused meats, intense with the earthy, woody perfumes that make barbecue an authentic native art form. I ate two platefuls.

Like any good mother who is into barbecue, Mom slops her meats with a dense, tangy homemade barbecue sauce before serving them. She dishes up hefty portions piled high on plastic plates crowded with side dishes and slices of bread.

The sauce is bright red, almost a clown red, so be careful not to get any on your clothes. It’s full of vinegar and brown sugar and heaven knows what else. Fontenette just chuckled as though I was asking her to broker a loan when I asked her for the recipe. All she would tell me was that she learned how to make it as a little girl and that I could buy some to take home.

The tender, slightly fatty pork and beef ribs are my favorite dishes, but the moist barbecued chicken is, of course, a more diet-conscious alternative. I was slightly disappointed with the hot link, which wasn’t particularly hot.

The side dishes are a treat. There are good collard greens, roughly chopped coleslaw, somewhat mushy black-eyed peas and definitely mushy red beans, the latter the consistency of an order of refritos.

Fontenette makes her own desserts, and they often sell out by early evening. I’ve had a sweet lemon pie piled high with meringue, and a runny peach cobbler, one of the few in town that is more cobbler than peaches. She makes good corn bread too.

Suggested dishes: pork ribs, $7.25; beef ribs, $7.25; black-eyed peas, 75 cents; peach cobbler, $2.

Two doors down, Henriett Harb, a real Cajun, is cooking up her specialties at Gee, I Can’t Believe It’s Fish.

I’m not sure I understand this name, because I couldn’t figure out what most of these dishes were supposedly taken for instead. I did have a wonderful piece of chicken boudin--a homemade off-white color Cajun sausage. And for a second, I thought it might just be fish.

Like Fontenette, Harb learned her craft as a girl--in her case, in Lafayette, La. Maybe that’s where she developed the fiery spice mixture she sells to a select group of amateur Cajun cooks around here. A man came in and bought 10 pounds of it while I was having dinner.

Harb cooks such side dishes as black-eyed peas and collard greens, but her real strength is Cajun cooking. Her jambalaya--spicy rice mixed with chicken, hot links and vegetables--is thick and filling, and the zesty link sausage is definitely not for the faint of heart. The gumbo is a murky stew with unpeeled shrimp, some hard-to-eat crab legs and pieces of chicken floating in it. Harb thickens the dish with okra, not file (sassafras leaf), so her version is on the liquid side. It certainly doesn’t lack flavor.

My favorite is the seafood platter. It includes a huge portion of cornmeal-breaded fried oysters, shrimp in a spicy batter and a slab of blackened snapper. Blackened fish has become such a cliche that you forget how good it is in the hands of someone who really knows how to prepare it. The blackened pork chops are also terrific.

When Cajuns eat, they eat, so exercise restraint here. Gumbo and jambalaya are available in half orders, and even those portions are so big you won’t have room for another course. Main dishes come with red beans and rice, a creamy coleslaw and hush puppies. The hush puppies, incidentally, are the best I’ve ever tasted.

I may never think of mini-malls the same way again.

Suggested dishes: jambalaya, $9.95; seafood platter, $12.95; blackened pork chops, $10.95.

Mom’s Bar-B-Q House, 14062 Vanowen St . , Van Nuys. (818) 786-1373. Lunch and dinner 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, noon to 10 p.m. Saturday. No alcoholic beverages. Parking lot. Cash only. Dinner for two, food only, $12 to $20.

Gee, I Can’t Believe It’s Fish, 14066 Vanowen St . , Van Nuys. (818) 988-3474. Lunch and dinner, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Parking lot. No alcoholic beverages. Cash only. Dinner for two, food only, $15 to $25.