It’s sometimes fun to look at the story behind a restaurant before you even think of looking at the menu itself, especially when it’s your first visit.
Some restaurateurs come up with colorful stories, while others are straight-laced business folks with no thought of some frivolous story to enhance our perception of their restaurant.
Ling and Louie’s in the Irvine Spectrum Center comes to mind.
The former Thaifoon is still the same building with the same decor and basically the same food. And, it’s still under the same corporate umbrella.
But, over a span of about three years, the style of food served,Thai, Chinese and Japanese inspired dishes with a smattering of other Asian specialties done on additional monthly menus,was a better fit with the name Ling and Louie’s rather than the more singularly perceived name Thaifoon.
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Inside Lucille’s: retro decor, small town U.S.A. feel |
A think tank of restaurant pros, marketing gurus and probably an analyst or two was convened.
When every idea was laid out and dissected, the name change and a story to go with it were decided upon as the way to go.
Ling and Louie’s parlays the story of boy meets girl, East meets West, Asian food meets American hospitality, all comprising a love story told in food.
As they tell it, it is the love story between Ling, a Chinese girl with formidable cooking skills, and Louie, her restaurateur husband with distinctively American tastes and standards on service.
We are meant to imagine their love story completely entwined in the food and the ambiance.
I loved it all when the restaurant was Thaifoon, and I am still very fond of the dining experience under the Ling and Louie’s flag.
It’s just a tad more fun now being swept along with the love story, even though it’s an imaginary tale
We haven’t been to Ling and Louie’s for a while. But we did try out the newest location for Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que in the evolving District at Tustin Legacy.
The new shopping center also will have several fast-food spots, and, more notably, a Panera Cafe & Bakery will open soon.
About August, a very upscale restaurant backed by a quartet of famous athletes and partnered by some former Morton’s employees and an extremely talented chef will is set to debut.
Lucille’s beat them in construction completion, and it was sort of amazing to see the crowds that turned out as soon as the doors were opened.
This brings us to the back story of Lucille’s, now with nine restaurants and two more soon to open.
The tale also is a good read on the back of the menu, but not a reality.
The point man behind Lucille’s is Craig Hofman, a seasoned restaurant pro whose father created the Hof’s Hut chain.
It appears that Craig jumped on a good idea with the barbecue theme, judging from the number of people who have mentioned Lucille’s to me over the past few years and the volume of business the restaurants do.
I’d suspected that there was really no Lucille and that was confirmed for me during this latest dinner. But it sounds good.
Supposedly, the young girl named Lucille loved her granny’s cooking and as she became a teen and helped out in granny’s little lunch shack, grandma confided her secrets for her exemplary barbecue sauce and how to get the perfect hickory smoke flavor into the meats.
The story continues with Lucille marrying before World War II and following her man to Long Beach.
They both missed the flavor of their hometown barbecue. Thus Lucille’s restaurant was born.
It’s a cute little tale and it does seem to fit the atmosphere.
Although it’s surrounded by parking lots, they’ve situated the building as a homestyle affair with a white picket fence surrounding it. Step through the gate and it does feel like this might be a country home in any small town U.S.A. Floors are wood or checkerboard tile.
Interior rooms have plenty of booth seating. There are waiting areas that are down home replicas of small, enclosed porches.
Taking the porch theme further, an L-shaped room along two sides of the building seems as though it would be at home with swings and lots of rocking chairs. But, it’s all enclosed in glass and decked out in those 1950s Formica and polished aluminum dining sets.
The menu’s pretty comprehensive and portions are huge.
Barbecue flavors range from Chinese influenced with some hoisin sauce mixed into their sweet and spicy barbecue sauce; zesty with a swipe of spiciness in every bite; and a mop sauce that highlights many of the meats as they are plated.
Cuts of meat include pork and beef ribs, pork chops, short ribs, beef brisket, tri tip, New York and sirloin steaks and hot links. Chicken is also served in the barbecue manner (half a chicken) or fried Southern style (however, it’s breast meat and I only order fried chicken if dark meat is part of my order). Shrimp and catfish also have their place.
There are eight salads, all with some kind of meat or shrimp as part of the m & #233;lange with greens and other vegetables, but you can request just a dinner salad.
Gumbo is billed as New Orleans style, made with shrimp, chicken and andouille sausage but we found only two little pieces of shrimp when we ordered it and too much rice in the middle of the bowl.
The other dish that misses the mark for us is the jambalaya.
We found it overly spiced and also short on shrimp, different in taste from what I grew up with in the South.
Some of the barbecue items are offered in appetizer portions, along with wings, crab cakes, fried green tomatoes, fried dill pickles (these are addictive little things that I learned to love in Louisiana), fried or barbecued shrimp and fried okra.
Sandwiches are made with almost all of the meats as choices.
They come with a choice of two sides and all meat entrees also come with side dishes that complement. The homemade biscuits are fluffy and huge and part of the entree experience.
If you can’t make up your mind, settle for one of the combo plates with three kinds of meat and/or chicken.
Desserts really go retro, just like some drinks. Iced tea is served in a quart mason jar. The goodies include banana pudding, bread pudding, fruit cobble, apple pie and chocolate cake.
Lucille’s is interesting but rather expensive for a barbecue place. Appetizers: $6.50 to $12.95. Sandwiches: $9.95 to $12.95. Salads: $10.95 to $12.95. Ribs racks: $23.50 to $24.95. Steak and specialty dishes: 16.95 to $26.95.
Lucille’s Smokehouse Bar-B-Que: 2550 Park Ave., Tustin (714) 259-1227. The District at Tustin Legacy is between Jamboree Road and Red Hill Avenue on Barranca Parkway.
