Sushi ‘Cue

Gardena, it is well known, is where to go for Japanese food in California--sushi bars and noodle shops, exquisite izaka-ya and raucous karaoke pubs, Japanese greasy spoons serving Western food that seems catered by Chef Boy-ar-Dee. Gardena was the site of the last surviving all-eel place, and its restaurants are among the best places for finding exotic, costly fish flown in from Japan. If you know what you’re doing, you can eat pretty well in Gardena.

Jay-Bee’s is the barbecue stand in the South Bay, a fountain of brisket in the no-man’s-land where Gardena fades into Compton, a short, straight shot from Gardena’s noodleshops and Japanese malls. Draconian AQMD regulations may have forced the county’s barbecue pits to install smoke scrubbers and everything, but Jay-Bee’s still announces its presence in hickory smoke as forthrightly as a joint in the Tennessee countryside. A matrix of light industry and ruler-straight streets, a phalanx of machine-toolers and plating shops, Jay-Bee’s neighborhood is not so much a bad part of town as no part of town at all. And Jay-Bee’s itself is little more than a takeout shack on a small traffic island, a couple of tables outside and a line out the door, and a menu that consists of barbecue, strawberry soda and sock-it-to-me cake.

But even after a lunch of ramen or sea bream, a subtle supper of udon or crab, a Gardena visit can feel sort of . . . incomplete . . . without a detour to Jay-Bee’s House of Fine Bar-B-Q, which fills in the blank spots, if you know what I mean. I like raw cuttlefish as much as the next guy, maybe more, but I’ll be the first to admit sashimi lacks the immediacy of pit-cooked ‘cue.

Spare ribs are soft, the weight of the meat stripping the meat from the bone before you even have the chance to take a bite, alive with smoke, as deeply fat-flavored as barbecued rillettes ; beef ribs are heroic, chewy, charred. Barbecued beef, sliced into finger-size strips, is rich, blackened at the edges, juicy as any brisket sandwich. Hot links may be a little grainy, may taste a little too much like knockwurst laced with cayenne, but are fine. Here is pork shoulder, five hours in the pit, chopped Memphis-style, crunchy black bits and soft gray chunks veined with creamy fat, juicy white bits gritty with unburnt spice. The stuff is doused with a peppery barbecue sauce whose afterburn lasts half the afternoon, is served with a scoop of eggy potato salad and a couple of slices of Weber’s Bread, maybe a tablespoonful of molasses-flavored baked beans, and sinks like a truck tire in the gut.

In other words, though Phillip’s in Leimert Park might rate a smidge higher in the hickory-smoke pantheon, Jay-Bee’s pork shoulder is what barbecue is supposed to be.

* Jay Bee’s House of Fine Bar-B-Q

15911 Avalon Blvd., Gardena, (310) 532-1064. Open Monday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Cash only. No alcohol. Takeout. Dinner for two, food only, about $15.