Follow Your Nose

There’s California barbecue, which is what most of us will be grilling in our backyards Friday, and then there’s Southern barbecue, which takes long hours of smoking in a barbecue pit. The latter is what you get at BBQ Shack, the Valley’s first drive-thru barbecue place.

Until BBQ Shack opened, Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas Barbecue had the barbecue scene about sewed up around here. BBQ Shack, which cooks in a different, highly distinctive style, is at least as good. It’s almost impossible to stop eating these slow-cooked, hardwood-smoked meats.

The place is at a busy mid-Valley intersection directly across from a Denny’s. A steep A-frame roof makes it easy to spot, but you could find it by smell alone. As you approach, you’re bound to catch a whiff of the pecan and walnut woods, which barbecue enthusiast Howard Fuchs uses.

Everything is cooked in a style that Fuchs learned in a one-week course at a barbecue school in Jackson, Tenn. Fuchs, a big, bearded, hale sort who will tell you exactly what goes into his recipes with scarcely any prodding, is hardly your usual pit man. Raised in Brooklyn, he is a Los Angeles city prosecutor for most of the week.

“The sauce is actually my wife’s recipe,” he volunteers. He doesn’t use hickory, he says, because it completely dominates the flavor of any meat. A few of his recipes have been adapted from the well-known Memphis restaurant Corky’s, a 20-table operation that grosses $10 million a year.

I especially enjoyed the ribs. BBQ Shack’s deliciously lean pork ribs are served in the classical “dry” fashion: You apply the restaurant’s spicy, glistening red sauce to them yourself.

But the beef ribs impressed me even more. You get one huge, crusty, meaty rib, well over a foot long and probably weighing close to a pound. It is unusually trim and smoky. As for the chicken served here, it must have a bionic ancestor. You get nearly a pound of moist, smoky meat on the bone, with sauce on the side.

BBQ Shack also serves the juiciest, spiciest hot links I have ever tasted in an L.A. barbecue restaurant. Fuchs buys his links but won’t disclose the source; anyway, they’re terrific.

For the sandwiches, pulled and shredded barbecued meats are piled up on regular hamburger buns (you can ask for a French roll instead). The shredded pork shoulder, shredded beef brisket and pulled chicken are sweet music to the palate, all three tender and fragrant with the house red sauce and topped with homemade cole slaw. The one disappointment is the sliced smoked turkey sandwich. For some reason, turkey absorbs an oddly medicinal flavor from the hardwoods used here.

By the way, whole smoked turkeys, hams, tri-tips, pork loins and standing rib roasts are available on special order, if you give Fuchs 48 hours’ notice.

The side dishes are dependable. The best one is the slaw, adapted from the one served at Corky’s. It’s a roughly shredded version dressed with mayonnaise and celery seed and strikes a nice balance between sweet and salty. The baked beans are a bit heavy on the brown sugar.

The creamy, oniony potato salad is the only thing served here that isn’t prepared on the premises. It isn’t bad, though I wish it weren’t served so cold. The corncobs, wrapped in foil and dripping with butter, taste surprisingly fresh. There are also giant stuffed potatoes topped with butter, sour cream, Cheddar cheese, real bacon bits and green onions. Whew!

This place is less a restaurant than a take-out, though you can, if you want, eat in the parking lot on dreary plastic patio tables. Fuchs dreams of making BBQ Shack a franchise, and he already has big plans to do a sit-down barbecue restaurant.

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BE THERE

BBQ Shack, 7615 Reseda Blvd., Reseda. Sunday-Wednesday 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday 10:30 a.m.-11 p.m. Dinner for two, $12-$26. No alcohol. Parking lot. Cash only. (818) 345-9200.