Tip for Diners: Try the Tri-Tip

Tri-tip barbecue is as important a part of California’s culinary history as anything created in the great restaurant kitchens of Los Angeles and the Bay Area. But you wouldn’t know it living in Orange County, where only a handful of places serve this delicious spread.

Lou Gaydos sensed this gap nine years ago when he opened Lou’s Oak Oven Barbecue, and his humble, family-style Huntington Beach restaurant captures the Santa Maria barbecue style as well as any place I’ve been outside the Central Coast.

The tri-tip, more formally known as the triangle tip, is a small triangular muscle from the end of the bottom sirloin. A steak cut about 3 inches thick from it weighs 1 to 2 pounds.

It may never have never gained the nationwide fame of Texas-style or Southern barbecue, but for more than 100 years it has reigned as the king of ‘cue on the Central Coast. Just head north on 101 and you’ll find tri-tip served in a range of eateries from roadside stands to white-linen restaurants.

Santa Maria’s taste for this cut goes back to the 19th century, when the local vaqueros were cooking it over red oak, a common tree in the area. They started the practice of cutting it into quarter-inch slices and serving it with boiled beans (a local variety called pinquito), salsa and bread. These days, sourdough or French rolls are served.

Because tri-tip is so lean, it is often brushed with oil while it cooks. It’s usually rubbed with a pepper-garlic seasoning first, and it’s best cooked medium-rare to medium. Done properly, tri-tip has the rich, savory flavor of sirloin with a tinge of garlic and a sweet, smoky tint. Lou’s uses the classic black pepper-garlic rub and cooks over oak, but instead of simply throwing the meat on the traditional grill, it’s turned on a rotisserie. Maybe this is why Lou’s barbecue more tender than most.

Tri-tip is served here either as an entree or a sandwich. If you order it as an entree, you get five or six slices fanned out like cards in a poker game with a scoop of pinquito beans on the side. By itself, the tri-tip doesn’t have the aged, mellow flavor of good steak, but it’s a solid, flavorful meat that holds up well when a touch of salsa is added. There’s also some of that pepper-garlic seasoning on the table if you want to punch it up.

I prefer the tri-tip sandwich. “Original style” means the beef is served hot on a toasted French roll spread with garlic butter. Salsa comes on the side, and I like to add just a little to augment the buttery/garlicky/meaty flavor.

You can also get a tri-tip sandwich with barbecue sauce or, in a bow to Los Angeles’ culinary history, with beef juices, French-dip style. There’s even a cold tri-tip sandwich, like a roast beef sandwich, with lettuce, tomato, red onion and a Dijon/mayonnaise blend.

There’s more than beef here, and the sandwiches in general put fast-food sub shops to shame. The cold turkey breast is hearty, with a nice pop of flavor from the Dijon mayo and there’s a hot turkey sandwich with gravy and cranberry sauce.

Other choices include grilled linguica (a Portuguese sausage with a distinctive hint of curry), barbecue pork and rotisserie-grilled chicken. And then there’s the massive Arroyo Grande burrito stuffed with pinquito beans, salsa and a choice of meat--tri-tip, chicken or linguica. The burrito and all the sandwiches come with beans and a choice of soup or salad. At $6.99, it’s a good deal.

The menu calls the entrees “early California selections.” Tri-tip ($8.99) is the obvious choice, but the rotisserie chicken (a half bird) is also fine, the skin as crisp as baklava pastry, the meat tender and juicy. Smoky, sweet pork loin roast is another option. And again there’s linguica, which Gaydos said was brought to the Santa Maria area by the Portuguese who worked on the ranchos more than a century ago.

It’s a sausage you rarely find in Orange County restaurants, but it’s part of the Central Coast tradition.

This is all orthodox Santa Maria barbecue, but Lou’s doesn’t stick totally to the Santa Maria menu. It recently broke ranks by offering St. Louis-style ribs. These aren’t the baby-back ribs you might expect. They’re center-cut spare ribs, meatier but not quite as tender and tasty as baby backs. Covered with tangy barbecue sauce, they’re not bad, but better versions of this familiar sort of barbecue can be found elsewhere. It’s with the tri-tip that Lou’s has a virtual monopoly.

And that’s why so many come to Lou’s--for California’s signature contribution to the beef-eating world.

Given the quality of the rotisserie-grilled meats and the affordable prices, it’s easy to forgive Lou’s thoroughly forgettable soups and salads and meager appetizer selection (chicken wings, gooey jalapeno poppers).

This isn’t sophisticated dining. The food comes on metal camping plates and drinks, including wine, are served in Mason jars. But if you’re hungry for fine tri-tip, it’s a lot easier to drive to Huntington Beach than to trek 200 miles north to Santa Maria.

Lou’s is fairly inexpensive. Sandwiches are all $7; entrees run $8-$12. Catering available.

BE THERE

Lou’s Oak Oven Barbecue, 21501 Brookhurst St., Huntington Beach. (714) 965-5200. Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.