Saucy and sassy, this barbecue’s got attitude

With sparse white walls and bright modern paintings, Baby Blues Bar-B-Q looks more like an art gallery than a Southern barbecue place. But that’s exactly what it is, and a terrific one, at that.

It’s got the roots to prove it too. They’re just not the Texas, Oklahoma or Memphis roots we’re used to. That’s the North Carolina flag painted all over the front window, and the cartoony character on the menu -- the guy dripping with luck symbols such as dice and playing cards -- is Jack, the clever, lucky young hero of many an ancient folk tale told in the North Carolina hills.

So the idea at this smartly outfitted place in Venice is down-home barbecue with a North Carolina slant. You see this most plainly in the homemade hot sauces, which are vinegary and not at all sweet. Baby Blues does not think much of the idea of putting ketchup or tomato paste in barbecue sauce, either.

Instead, its barbecue sauces are more like hot sauces (there are also four or five Louisiana and Thai hot sauces on the tables). One house sauce is thin and cherry-red, like a mild Louisiana sauce. Then there’s a thicker, hotter one and finally a really hot one (labeled “XXX” or “porno hot”), which is practically chewy with ground chiles. Once you adjust to its hotness, you notice the same sweet dried-fruit aroma you find in sun-dried tomatoes.

These sharp, emphatic sauces go quite well with the barbecue at Baby Blues. If you really get into the vinegar and chile idea, grab one of the bottles of homemade chile vinegar that are floating around the restaurant. It’s simply vinegar with a bite from the fresh hot chiles marinating in it.

Some items on the menu also give barbecue a novel spin. There’s the Suicide King, for instance. Despite its lurid name, which suggests something deep-fried and Elvis-ish, this is a surprisingly elegant appetizer. It consists of four disks of fried cornmeal mush topped with pork, beef or shrimp arranged around a mound of cole slaw. The effect is a little like one of those salad-like Thai dishes -- except, of course, for the fact that it’s cornmeal instead of a pastry and cole slaw instead of Thai greens, and the barbecued shrimp have a vaguely Thousand Island-like secret sauce. Oh, and there’s a light snowfall of grated Mexican cotija cheese on the plate. Other than that, mind you, it’s practically Thai.

The Jack sandwich (named for young Jack, of course) combines cole slaw and Parmesan-like cotija as a topping for a smoky sausage. The most distinctive element is the roughly grilled roll, which is like an English muffin. This is a great sandwich: chewy and aromatic from the bread, cheese and sausage, cool from the slaw and tangy with pickled peppers.

There are two kinds of pork ribs, regular (“long-bone”) and baby backs. They’re pleasantly crusted with spices but erratically cooked, sometimes moderately juicy, sometimes dry, almost bacon-like. North Carolina is known as pork barbecue country, but Baby Blues seems to do a better job barbecuing chicken, which is always tender and smoky here. You can get it as a plate, and it also makes a great sandwich (topped with cole slaw, of course).

You can also get pulled pork -- tender and quite moist, though not as moist as the beef brisket, which isn’t barbecued but braised in beer, so the shreds of meat have a faint bite of hops. Blackened catfish comes in the same sort of secret sauce (which might just be mayo mixed with one of the homemade hot sauces) that adorns the grilled barbecue shrimp. You can even get steak, moistened with a little butter that has a subtle chipotle bite.

There are also some nonstandard barbecue sides. The okra is not slimy in the least, due to some chef’s secret that involves freezing the okra, and it’s perfumed with whole garlic cloves.

A bigger surprise is the stewed tomatoes. They’re Romas, apparently roasted, rather than stewed -- they have a plush, chewy texture and a concentrated tomato aroma.

Baby Blues puts more effort into the dessert of the day than you might expect for such a small place. It might be mousse-like banana pudding with Nilla wafers, a fresh Key lime pie or a peach version of apple betty. When the end of the meal comes, they stay very close to the roots.

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Baby Blues Bar-B-Q

Location: 444 Lincoln Blvd., Venice; (310) 396-7675

Price: Sandwiches, $7 to $10; platters, $11 to $23; a la carte meats, $4.50 to $19; sides, $3; desserts, $5.

Best dishes: Homemade hot sauces, Suicide King with shrimp, smoked chicken sandwich, beer-braised brisket, the Jack sandwich.

Details: Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. No alcohol. Street parking. Visa, MasterCard, Discover.