OK Corral BBQ, where looks are deceiving, taste is delicious

The tip came via e-mail from a former resident of Kansas City, Mo., a place where barbecue is taken as seriously as religion. It's not for the squeamish, he writes about OK Corral, but if this guy were in K.C. he could compete.

It's a ramshackle joint in a building more prominent for its TV repair shop. The menu isn't printed or even written down. Owner Otis Austin just cooks what he feels like on the sooty, black smokers parked out front — mostly chicken, ribs and hot links, judging from the labels on the empty (you hope) meat cartons stacked on tables outside. Austin doesn't advertise — he doesn't even have a listed phone number — his customers follow their noses, and the regulars know to just say "hook me up" for a little of everything.

Not being regulars, we hesitate in the doorway, eyeing the grubby burlap padding stapled to the walls, the microwave oven and the singing Satchmo and James Brown statues grinning above the TV. A disparate clientele occupies mismatched chairs that might have come from a Ducky's closeout. They sit at three long tables of the sort you'd find in a church basement, some up to their eyebrows in sauce, others waiting for takeout and a few just hanging, absorbed in the Cartoon Network or cooing over Austin's infant granddaughter.

A friendly woman waves us inside with a big hello and quickly sizes us up.

"Don't think I've seen you in here before?"

First time, we admit, and we're hungry. Well, she knows how to fix that, and briskly recites the menu: chicken, ribs, hot links and catfish are $10 a plate, and that includes rice and beans, greens and cornbread. Hook them up, and it's $12 for the combo.

We decide on a combo plate of meat and an order of catfish. While we wait, we are gifted with a taste of not-quite-finished filé gumbo, thick with rice, sausage, seafood and chicken.

Soon we are facing a heap of hot food. Armed with a 64-ounce jug of ketchup, paper cups of cherry Kool-Aid drawn from a big jug cooler and a roll of paper towels tossed from someone at the next table, we proceed to get mighty messy and blissfully full.

Check please

Ribs, chicken and links: Hang onto that roll of paper towels; the meats are all finger foods. The spicy Louisiana hot links are cut into bite-sized pieces and the slightest tug on a meaty, spice-rubbed pork rib or plump, tender chicken leg releases the bone. Don't expect mouth-numbing heat, but your lips will definitely tingle from a vinegary red sauce that reveals just enough complexity to keep you interested. Firm, smoky, clove-scented pinto beans mixed with rice taste like they've been simmered in the same tangy sauce. Even the cabbage greens, mixed with some collards, are piquant.

Catfish and hush puppies: Never was there a crispier catch than these two wide-bodied fish fillets. The moist, flaky flesh tastes fresh and the breading isn't the least bit greasy. The dozen or so savory little balls of fried cornbread, flecked with finely minced onion and pepper are, just like the fish, crunchy on the outside, soft and hot in the middle.

Peach cobbler: Canned peaches baked in dough with plenty of sugar and cinnamon makes for a sweet mush that Gerber could put in a jar. Even blisteringly hot from the microwave, you'll eat more of it than you intend to, wishing for vanilla ice cream with each spoonful.

Itemized bill, meal for two:

Chicken, ribs and links combination: $12.00

Catfish and hush puppies: $10.00

Peach cobbler: $3.00

Tax: $2.32

Tota: $27.32 Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com.