Barbecue Balance

The ever-crowded Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill in Agoura Hills is a natty upscale place of snazzy wood paneling, cushy leather booths and slick, professional service. It has little in common with the funky barbecue restaurants in Memphis or Kansas City, apart from one thing: good food.

This Wood Ranch (others are in Moorpark and Camarillo) seats more than 300, but a meal can still seem intimate because the booths have high backs.

I usually start with a slushy raspberry margarita and some of the complimentary warm garlic yeast rolls. One good appetizer is the cheese-rich spinach and artichoke dip (watch out, it’s served very hot). When it’s available, grab the tri-tip sirloin and mushroom soup, a gloriously beefy broth full of sirloin chunks.

Flavors tend to be balanced, not assertive. The crisp Caesar salad stresses shredded cheese and buttery toasted croutons and shies away from anchovies.

The mesquite-barbecued meats are lean and of high quality, but the barbecue sauce definitely lacks muscle. The best entrees I’ve had were surprisingly moist king salmon and a perfectly charred New York steak, and they were both served with the sauce on the side.

For no reason I can see, the most popular item is tri-tip roast, a brick-sized hunk of beef basted all over with the restaurant’s cloyingly sweet barbecue sauce. It’s tender enough, but the sauce masks the flavor of the meat. The same is true of the baby back pork ribs (which are, admittedly, as tender as any ribs I’ve tried lately).

There is an interesting chopped salad, big enough for a small family, made with beans, tortilla strips, white corn, tomatoes, Jack cheese and barbecued chicken breast. The notable chicken pasta is fusilli tossed with chicken, broccoli and sweet red peppers.

Most entrees come with good side dishes. My favorite is the peanut cole slaw, full of crisp Virginia peanuts and a tangy celery seed vinaigrette. The light, crunchy ranch fries are dusted with red pepper. There is a big but not at all mealy baked potato.

When it comes time for dessert, though, I do start missing those funky Memphis fire pits. The “cobbler” is really a hot fruit crisp which cloys after a bite or two. Oreo crumble is two huge boulders of Haagen-Dazs vanilla rolled in crushed Oreo cookies; no surprises there. I’d take that famous Kansas City dessert burnt rib ends instead. Any old time.

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BE THERE

Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill, 5050 Cornell Road, Agoura Hills. Open from 4-10 p.m. Monday-Friday, 3-11 p.m. Saturday, 2-10 p.m. Sunday. Full bar. Parking in lot. All major cards. Dinner for two, $24-$46. Suggested dishes: tri-tip sirloin and mushroom soup, $2.95; spinach and artichoke dip, $6.50; New York strip, $15.95; Alaska salmon, $13.95. Call 597-8900.