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QUEST FOR BBQ LEADS TO D'MILLERS'

December 5, 1993
Section: SCENE
Page: D2

By Ed Murrieta Bee Staff Writer

TIME & MONEY

EAT 'N' RUN

--Like a gourmandish Diogenes with a barbecue bib, I've wandered lands searching for one honest-to-mother-loving-goodness-helluva rib joint. This quasi-heroic quest has led me from the heart of Santa Ana's barrio to the capital's ever-stretching 'burbs - and lands far stranger.

Ah, what a long, sauce-stained trip it's been . . .

But this was the first time I've ever walked out of a rib joint liking the chicken more than the ribs. The place is D'Millers' Famous BBQ, a small, three-table place next to a beauty shop at Fair Oaks Boulevard and Sutter Avenue, a few blocks north of Carmichael Park.

This is one destination in my quest that didn't leave me searching for spare pocket change later. A half-slab rib dinner is the most expensive - and expansively filling - thing on the menu at $8.95. But you could stuff yourself silly on rib, chicken and tender, sliced pork dinners in the $6 range or bite into a meat-packed sandwich for around two bucks.

Even though you have to fight the suburb traffic to get there, D'Millers' manages the charm of a clean, well-lighted rib joint. The ever-popular white resin furniture and lattice-work-and-fake-plant ceiling may not contribute much to rib joint funk, but a small collection of 8x10s of generic, half-familiar R&B singers and jukin' blues bands plays its part well.

The ribs have that same quite-good-but-not-quite-great appeal. The chicken is a whole different matter.

D'Millers' smokes its meat in a wood-pellet smoker that's parked outside the tiny restaurant. This cooking process renders D'Millers' ribs sweet, tender-tough pink. These pigs-on-a-stick are meaty but the stray pockets of fat - in most cases, flavor-enhancers - are gelatinous, watery and bland, distracting from the flavor.

The ribs are a bone or two above average, but ultimately come up short in the sauce department. With smoked meats, it's good to have a sauce that doesn't overwhelm the meat but still makes its force known and adds a little something itself. But D'Millers' barbecue sauce doesn't seem to be up for even a little competition. It's got a nice peppery sear but it's on the thin side and doesn't pack much else than the heat. The sweet sauce is sticky and sweet but misses for me.

Now for the chicken: D'Millers' serves up one tender bird and the whitest white meat I've ever seen. One breast I ate was as large as a back and twice as high, tender without being watery. Yum.

Oddly, the sauces served the chicken better than the ribs. It's something I can't even explain to my taste buds.

A rib dinner with four bones is $6.95. A half-chicken dinner is $5.95. Also good is the sliced, boneless pork rib dinner ($5.50). With all of them, there's a lot of meat.

All dinners come with barbecue beans and your choice of potato or macaroni salad, corn bread or roll. The beans are very good, flavored with a dose of cinnamon. The potato salad, too, is good. The corn bread muffin is one of the best corn breads I've had recently. It's a fat, heavy muffin - golden, toasty brown outside and spongelike dense.

Rating: * *3/4

D'MILLERS' FAMOUS BBQ

Where: 7305 Fair Oaks Blvd., 974-1881

Hours: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday-Saturday

What you'll pay: $4-$9

In-and-out time: 30 minutes

Recommended bites: Chicken

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