Suburban barbecue

When a co-worker came back from lunch saying very sweet things about House of Chicken & Ribs, it was the Elverta Road address that threw me. What came to mind was a bucolic vision of horse farms, oak trees, fences wooden and cyclone, pickup trucks and U-Pull-It wrecking yards, the kind of Oklafornia suburban-rural borderland that Rush Limbaugh often made fun of when he was a local. Ergo, the kind of area that might make a fine location for a barbecue joint. I could already picture the wood-panelled walls and plastic gingham tablecloths and almost catch a whiff of burning hickory and searing meats—as close a definition of heaven as this avowed carnivore can muster.

This was not the tableau presented by House of Chicken & Ribs, however. The stretch of Elverta Road in Antelope where the restaurant is sited looks more like modern-day Roseville than old Rio Linda. The restaurant itself is housed in a ’90s vintage strip mall, Antelope Plaza, which is adjacent to an oversized LDS church building. You can’t get any more suburban than that.

If the House specialized in pasta, salads and white wine, it might even have a sun-blanched alfresco patio adjoining the parking lot in front. Instead, the space where the patio might be is dominated by a huge iron barbecue and smoker, upon which owner Dwight Barnett and his son Dominick grill the House’s daily array of meat dishes over oak wood coals, while Barnett’s wife, Kim, takes care of the side dishes in the kitchen.

Once inside the dining room, on the left as you walk in, there’s an open kitchen area and counter where you place your order. The room itself is painted in various tones of gray; there are cylindrical gray columns throughout and a large-screen TV in the back—on the recent evening we visited they were showing the NBA draft on TNT, something that seemed to go well with eating barbecue. Padded bench seating, with tables, lines the opposite wall and also forms a center divider; there are also chairs. The point is that the accomodations are comfortable for large people, and barbecue, when it is good, tends to pull large people in like a magnet. And the food is indeed good at House of Chicken & Ribs, with a full menu of meat, chicken and seafood dishes.

Let’s start with the delicacies mentioned in the restaurant’s name. Both the chicken pieces and the ribs—your choice of beef or pork—appeared to have been cooked real slow and were marinated beforehand. Good barbecue takes time if you want the kind where tender morsels of meat fall off the bone, and that’s what we had here. The beef ribs were quite tasty but a trifle overcooked; the pork ribs were just perfect. The yardbird was outstanding, with moist strips of meat that almost melted in the mouth. Everything came slathered in a pungent deep-red sauce. (I ordered it hot because I don’t do mild; you can order it mild if you like.)

The beef smoked links came sliced diagonally; they were above par but not outstanding. The beef tri-tip, however, was topnotch; it came thinly sliced, then cubed and, yes, slathered in sauce. A dining companion ordered the red snapper and pronounced it first-rate.

The House also serves chicken wingettes and more seafood—catfish, prawns and oysters. Half-orders range from $6.05 (chicken wingettes) to $9.60 (the tri-tip); full orders from $11.50 to $18.50. Trust me, a full order and you’ll be parked in your Barcalounger for a day or two. You can also order various combos, which come with side dishes, and if you really want to go whole hog (or steer), you can opt for the slab of ribs family meal.

Of the side dishes, the collard greens tasted nutritious but buttery and without the bitter mineral flavor some greens have. The potato salad was outstanding—rich, stick-to-your-ribs stuff, loaded with egg and mayonnaise. The coleslaw was crisp and tart, the way coleslaw should be. The baked pinto beans were nondescript, but that’s the utility of beans; you eat a spoonful to clean your palate before switching meats. The corn on the cob was, well, corn on the cob. And the sweet potato fries came in long shoestrings, deep-fried with a nutmeg aftertaste; they were sublime.

And we haven’t even mentioned dessert. There are two choices. We did not try the peach cobbler. We did try the sweet potato pie, a five-inch-round piece of heaven with a flaky, buttery crust and a brilliant finish of nutmeg and cinnamon. Even if the rest of House of Chicken & Ribs’ dishes were mediocre, I’d drive back to Antelope for more of that pie. Fortunately, that’s not the case.