A Louisiana dream in Pasadena

Beige walls with recessed lamps, linen-clad tables, vases full of elegant bare branches spotted along a room divider. Behind the bar there’s a selection of wines, and, out front, a sign reading, “Big Mama’s BBQ Southern Cookin Rib Shack.”

Once again, you can’t judge a book by its cover, or, in this case, it’s title. This place is no shack.

The late Emma Sue McWhorter wasn’t a big mama, either -- not physically, anyway, if her photos are anything to go on. She was certainly big in spirit, to judge from the spunky quotes scattered around www.big mamasribs.com.

The name may ring a bell. In the 1980s, she ran another Big Mama’s Rib Shack in Pasadena about a mile and a half south of this one. The new Big Mama’s is actually an outgrowth of the one her son founded in Las Vegas 10 years ago, using her recipes.

What we have here is exceptionally mouth-filling, highly flavored Southern cooking. In the smothered dishes, the gravy is jauntily dosed with black pepper. The Cajun food is particularly full of snap and savor. (Where did Big Mama, who was born in Georgia, learn so much about Louisiana cooking?)

The barbecued items always have a good hickory smoke flavor and come with a finely balanced tomato-based sauce, not too sweet and not terribly hot. The chicken and pork spare ribs are moist and falling apart. The links are pretty good too, grainy and spicy, but the sliced beef, parts of which may be dry and chewy, isn’t quite as good as the sliced pork. You can get any kind of barbecue either as a dinner with two sides or a sandwich on a hamburger bun, and Big Mama’s is generous with the napkins (cloth napkins, in this special sort of shack).

The menu lists a couple of Southern stewed dishes, such as smothered oxtails. They’re full of strong, meaty oxtail flavor, if a little fatty. The blackboard special one night was smothered spare ribs -- cut crosswise, rather than left in whole ribs like the barbecued spare ribs. They were very meaty, with what seemed, surprisingly, like a touch of smoke flavor under the peppery gravy.

Southern fried chicken occupies a menu niche of its own, because you can get it either as a dinner or by the piece. This is very good fried chicken, lightly dredged in flour and beautifully cooked; moist, flavorful ... and peppery, despite lacking gravy.

The gumbo is a forceful one, decisively spiced with cayenne, with a very dark roux for a broth; you may think simultaneously of the mysterious swamps of Louisiana and something rock-solid, like a block of mahogany. The jambalaya is more ingratiating, made with lots of meat (sausage, ham, beef and shrimp) as well as celery and rice and a spicy tomato sauce. It’s hotter than many a jambalaya, and you may feel like alternating it with mouthfuls of coleslaw.

Shrimp Creole is a less demanding dish (even my mother, who hadn’t a drop of the South in her, could turn out a respectable version), so you expect it to be OK. You might not expect the chicken Creole to be even better, though. It’s pretty spicy too.

Seafood is divided into fish (catfish or unspecified fish filet), which is lightly floured before frying, like the fried chicken, and shellfish (shrimp, oysters), in a luscious, thick breading which slowly insinuates oil into your mouth as you chew.

Side dishes include perfect hush puppies, with crunchy, brown crusts and an appetizing scent of onion, plush collard greens with scarcely any bitterness, a sweet, clean-tasting coleslaw and perfectly fried okra chunks, which are particularly good with a little hot sauce.

For dessert there are hot apple and peach cobblers, served in bowls, fragrant with nutmeg, and a red devil’s food cake (served way too cold, unfortunately) with a sharp lemon icing.

And would you like wine with those ribs?

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Big Mama’s Rib Shack

Location: 1453 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena, (626) 797-1792.

Price: Sandwiches, $3.95 to $6.95; dinners, $6.95 to $16.95; desserts, $2.75 to $3.

Best dishes: Barbecued ribs, fried chicken, jambalaya, chicken Creole.

Details: Open 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday. Beer and wine. Parking lot. All major cards.