Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill

Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill
2785 Lakeshore Drive
Corona, CA 92883
951-667-4200

When I think of a barbeque restaurant, it is difficult not to picture horseshoes on the walls, sawdust on the floor and perhaps a stuffed boar’s head staring down at me from above the big-screen TV that looms over the dinning hall full of picnic benches with checkered tablecloths and the Plexiglas cover that slides around when you accidentally bump it. All the food comes in baskets, they only sell beer to drink and Hank Williams is on a loop. We’ve all been to places like that, and that’s not saying the food isn’t outstanding—it almost always is, which is why they can get away with having so much, er… charm—but the point is that it is predictable, a stereotype for barbeque joints that doesn’t properly prepare us for when we visit places like Wood Ranch.

Of all the pads created around Dos Lagos, Wood Ranch lucked out and grabbed the best one, right on the lake with views of the waterfall. So far, no other establishment at the development is offered such vistas, and if you’re there when the sun goes down and they seat you in the back by the veranda—which I was—then it only adds to the ambiance of the experience. Wood Ranch’s décor borders on something you’d find in a fine restaurant in a posh neighborhood: Subdued lighting, dark woods, stone, glass and amber hues create a relaxed environment without being snobbish, and the arrangement of the booths and tables is varied enough to give most parties a sense of seclusion. However, if they’ve got the fire going, I’d suggest sitting on the veranda outside, if for nothing but the views of the lakes.

Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill began in 1992 as a dream of two college roommates tired of working 100-weeks for other people, always feeling that they could run a better restaurant. After going their separate ways after graduations, Eric Anders and Ofer Shemtov reunited and revived their dream. Wood Ranch BBQ and Grill was born and the first location was in Moorpark. Since then, they’ve added 11 more locations, the last one being a new restaurant in Los Angeles, which opened last May. At the Corona branch, they employ roughly 85 people during the dinner shift and it is managed by Brandy Vanderbeck and Ricky Rufatt, and duties in the kitchen are overseen by head chef Ruben Pichilingdue.

The first plates to arrive at my table were two of their most popular appetizers: Famous Shredded Onions and the spinach and artichoke dips. The shredded onions were thinly sliced onions with a light seasoning of salts and garlic, and although well recommended, I would have preferred much more garlic to give them the zing that they needed. The spinach and artichoke dip was creamy as well as flavorful, perhaps on account of their use of fresh ingredients. And as I would come to find out, the portions at Wood Ranch exceed expectations.

Right when the salad made its entrance, they also brought one of their signature drinks, a raspberry mojito, a surprisingly refreshing martini-like drink made with Cruzan raspberry rum, which would have been perfect if it was about 30 degrees warmer outside. The salad wasn’t the sort of salad I would have expected—the BBQ chopped salad with chicken and tri-tip—and believe me when I say that you could order this salad and not worry about the main course. It featured everything you’d think a salad should be, including a few additions, like corn for instance, that would be right at home on the back of a chuck wagon, but the real treat was the chicken and tri-tip (you can have one or the other…or both). These two meats, juicy, hearty and bursting with Wood Ranch’s proprietary barbeque sauce, were plenty to fulfill any barbeque coinsurer.

The main dish was the Wood Ranch BBQ combo, which consisted of baby back ribs and tri-tip along the same lines as what was in the salad. Side dishes were macaroni and cheese and coleslaw (strangely enough with peanuts). The ribs didn’t fall off the bone when I touched them, as much as stereotypical barbeque joints suggest that they should, and I’m glad they didn’t. Half the fun of eating ribs is…well, eating ribs: you pick them up and chomp away, which is why they provide extra napkins and those lemon-scented wet napkins when you order the ribs. The tri-tip was a revisit of the salad, only this time they were in their own element, smothered the with extra sauce that would have surely ruined the taste of the salad. It was the sort of meat that instantly fills your mouth with spices and flavors no matter how small of a bite you take. It was prepared medium well, with just enough char to give it a smoky zest.

I wasn’t entirely impressed with the coleslaw, though it is only fair to mention that I have never been impressed with any coleslaw I’ve ever eaten, as it always seems like a salad that is trying to hard. However, the addition of the peanuts gave it a traditional Peruvian (okay, and Indonesian) feel to an otherwise European dish (hey, the Romans were Europeans). On the other hand, I can’t imagine anyone passing up the macaroni and cheese, and after one bite, it reminded me of my childhood, which is why, I guess, macaroni and cheese tops the list of comfort foods right after, say, meat loaf (though nobody will admit liking it). When I return with my kids, they’ll probably lick the plates clean and ask for more.

The Oreo Cookie Crunch isn’t exactly how it sounds. For starters, it didn’t crunch much, as Oreos lose their crunch ability as soon as they’re pulverized into a fine granular toping and added to a mound of ice cream. But, I’m not going to split hairs here, as it was the finest use of the Oreo cookie I have ever tasted. It comes to the table looking very much like Morro Rock, a rotund heap of Oreo cookie-encrusted ice cream completely surrounded by a sea of melted chocolate. You’ll forget your own name after the first bite, and by the third, you’ll need resuscitation. If you order nothing else at Wood Ranch, get this… get two, one more for the ride home.

After that, nothing could compare. I tried really hard to judge the Mom’s Deep-Dish Cobbler on its own level. Hot apples, flaky and crisp crumbled crust served in a tall-sided ramekin: It would have been perfect after that meat loaf and macaroni and cheese I mentioned above, but I couldn’t get over feeling that I was driving a Volkswagen just after getting out of a Ferrari. I took it home with me, and after given my body time to recoup, I gave it another shot. This time, the cinnamon on the apples and the semi-sweet-slathered apples came shining through. My advice is don’t get both.

The evening was finished off by a tall vodka cappuccino, and I had trouble finishing it. It wasn’t because of the drink, as it was well made, frothy with a warming bite from both the espresso and vodka (which is always subdued in a coffee drink, for those looking to better hide your winter alcoholism). I was unable to finish it because I was quite full from the previous dishes, but mostly because I had worked my way through college in an espresso bar. So the very sight of any coffee-based drink brings back horrible associations attributed to the espresso bean and my constant exposure to its smell, something I am completely desensitized to. I imagine this runs along the lines as slaughterhouses producing vegetarians; they just lose the taste for meat in the same why I have for coffee.

Overall, there is something for everyone at Wood Ranch. The staff is very amicable and accommodating. However, excellence comes with a price, as this isn’t an inexpensive place you’d take a Little League team after winning the big game (though they’d kill for the mac and cheese, no doubt). The prices are fair for the quality, the ambiance and the experience of a fine restaurant in Corona, and if you’re trying to impress a first date, you can’t do any better.

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Outlaw Larry’s

Outlaw Larry’s
1825 Hamner Avenue
Norco, (951) 278-2771

The full story of Outlaw Larry’s reads more like the tale of a relationship gone badly than one of a restaurant striving to find its place in a changing community. Some of you may remember Texas Loosey’s, which occupied the same building for a number of years. They began to serve food back when Norco’s streets were still quaintly paved with dirt and there were only three or four other restaurants in town. Originally, it was part of a chain of Texas Loosey’s strung across
a couple of counties, with the location in Torrance being the hub, but what most people may well remember about Texas Loosey’s is the fact that the image of the establishment fit well with its name: Picture Hooters with a sultry Texas drawl… oh yeah, and chaps over bikinis… well, you get the idea.

That theme worked well in rough and ready horse country, well enough to make a name for itself as a restaurant with great food and a great… ahem, view. But times, they do change, and Norco has been enjoying an upswing in the quality of life that its neighboring communities have been endorsing for a number of years, and when a continual breakout of new housing communities spring up across what was once cow and horse property, with it usually comes young families. If anything, Texas Loosey’s in its original form was not a family restaurant.

About 10 years ago, the chaps and bikinis disappeared, perhaps because of Norco’s
transformation, but the restaurant still carried with it the reputation of a local saloon that also served food, a place where regulars sit elbow to elbow at the bar, watch the game and tap the keg dry. Eventually, the Texas Loosey’s chain, for whatever reason, went belly up, bankrupt, and all the properties were scattered in the wind to their new owners. The folks that bought the Norco Texas Loosey’s property didn’t change anything about the place, but to their fault, they relied on inexperienced managers to make inexperienced decisions that greatly affected not only the slim-to-none profit margin but its already fragile relationship with the community. Groups were asked not to come back if they wanted to split the check too many ways or if they announced that they were going to go somewhere else after dinner for a drink.

All of that came to a screeching halt four years ago when Larry Weinstein, wrote a check for the deed to Texas Loosey’s, and a new incarnation was about to begin. For starters, he didn’t change a thing. Everyone in the kitchen, keep doing what you’re doing. He began right away to mend the relationships soured by the previous regime… and he expanded the menu… and expanded the menu… and then expanded the menu some more. Larry grew up behind the counter of his father’s delicatessen, and decided that he wanted to incorporate some of those tried and true recipes at his new place. However, since he didn’t want to cut any of the items, afraid that he might dishearten a customer loyal to whatever dish he axed, he would lose business, so his menu is ever growing, currently topping the scales at over 220 items.

But what to do about the name? With Texas Loosey’s still emblazoned on the front of the building, Larry was anxious he was either turning people away because of prior stigmas of previous owners or reputation or disappointing people who were used to the old Texas Loosey’s. After three years of fretting about the name, and a lot of hand wringing, a friend suggested Outlaw Larry’s, and although he didn’t want to use his name in the title, it stuck.

That was a year ago, and since then, business has been picking up, as it slowly ditches the baggage of a bar that serves food and embraces the ideal that Outlaw Larry’s is a family-style sports bar and steakhouse.

Well, now that you know way too much about how Texas Loosey’s became Outlaw Larry’s, what can you expect when you open the front door? Frankly, it is a no-frills establishment, as all the tricks that attract less discerning eaters to other restaurants, like Friday’s or Red Robin, are in the kitchen at Outlaw Larry’s. The pizzazz is in the food. The décor is a western theme meets a diner, but it doesn’t punch you in the face at every turn (like Friday’s), and while you should expect some thematic atmosphere from a restaurant, it would be hard to spot it if you first didn’t know the name on the building. And that’s good in a way, because it focuses on the food and the conversation, the whole reason for being there.

First to arrive at the table were three soups, each one better than the one before. The chicken noodle that I first tried was typical of what I would have expected to find in a bowl of regular chicken noodle soup, but it was actually refreshing and light. The chicken wasn’t chewy, the noodles rubbery nor was the base salty. What followed was Larry’s French Onion soup, topped with a thick slathering of cheese (possibly gruyere), a complex beef broth and nicely caramelized onions. It wasn’t overpower or especially chunky, but it would have made a nice platform off of which to jump into a steak and mashed potatoes. The third soup was a special concoction that isn’t ordinarily on the menu, a sweet and sour cabbage soup from the recipe files of Larry’s grandmother, and without giving it away the details of this soup, I suggest you leave your card and ask that Larry call you when he whips up a batch because it alone is well worth the price of admission.

There was hardly any room on the table for the behemoth that arrived next, as Larry hefted out the flagship of his menu, the Larry’s Mega Combo, a heaving platter of meats from the land, sea and air: A 10-ounce tri-tip steak, a smoked chicken, half a rack of baby back ribs, two thick beef ribs, five jumbo fried shrimp and a variety of in-house-made barbecue sauces, dips, Texas red chili and Ranchero beans (you can get other side options, of course).

Best on the plate for me were the two large beef ribs, that once you picked them up by the conveniently exposed bone (the steam-injection smoking method Larry uses to cook these ribs causes the meat to shrink on the bone without losing juiciness or flavor) the meat practically falls off into your mouth. They have a strong flavor, and with the robust barbecue, packs quite a hefty punch of taste.

I’ve never really been a fan of baby back ribs. For starters I always feel slightly guilty that the word “baby” is in the name… I know. But they’re always a lot of work for what you get. Usually, the meat is sparse, meager, and they are amazingly messy. Larry’s are no different in many regards, but the flavor of the meat more than makes up for it.

The butterflied fried shrimp added a nice contrast to the red meat and chicken, which was like having a basket of bread nearby to neutralize your mouth between meat shifts. It wasn’t over breaded like some shrimp plates I’ve been subjected to, and they rely more on the zest of the shrimp in the marinara sauce than the amount of frying they were cooked with.

I felt the chicken was a little on the dry side, at least once you bit through the thickly barbecue-basted skins, but it could have been dry because it was one of the last things I tried from the combo platter. Then again, it is difficult to make fowl that doesn’t come out dry, especially when it is compared to dripping wet ribs or a juicy tri-tip and all of the complementary sauces and sides on the plate. However, I lathered it up with some extra barbecue sauce and it was good to go.

Of everything so far, the entrée I was least enthusiastic to try was the Homemade Country Fried Steak, only because they always remind me of Salisbury steak I’d find in an elementary school cafeteria. I understand that isn’t really fair to compare them in that way (or generalize), but it is the gravy smothered on top that triggers my memory. Usually, the gravy on other country fried steaks I’ve had in the past has been bland, predictable and frankly insipid. At least Outlaw Larry’s injected his with chunks of bacon and bits of sausage to break up the monotony of a creamy gravy, and it is used sparingly on top of the steak. What balanced out the experience was the mashed potatoes, presented like a little volcano holding back the gravy lava that gave the smooth and creamy potatoes a welcomed kick, tying the whole plate
together with a common flavor.

If I could eat meat and potatoes every day of my life, I doubt that I would have anything to complain about. Of course, I would probably be nearly 400 pounds doing so, but at least I wouldn’t fret over what dinner was going to be like, so when I finally cleared some space on the table in front of me to make room for the 12 ounces of Angus rib eye steak that was headed my way, I was looking forward to it. Char broiled, the steak just sagged in my plate, a welcomed sight as I could almost slice into it with the side of my fork. The well tenderized meat was no match, melting in my mouth with very little help from my teeth. If you are a steak lover, you’re missing out if you haven’t had one of these yet (they also offer it in a 20- ounce size for the truly hungry). It came with steak fries and steamed vegetables that could not possible measure up to this steak, and if it came out from the kitchen on a plate all by itself, I don’t think I would have had a problem with that because it needed nothing else…okay, maybe a dab of horseradish. Certainly my favorite.

The fact that Outlaw Larry’s still enjoys some of the trappings of its roots can be seen not only in the pages of its menu—most all of the Texas Loosey’s menu was retained—but in the spirit of the restaurant itself. It’s come a long way from chaps and bikinis to booths filled with young families, its customers can rest assured, Outlaw Larry’s is a place where you can be sure that you’ll get a good traditional steak, hand-picked at the market by Larry himself, and cooked the proper way.

And hey, if you don’t like steak, there’s 219 other items on the menu. You won’t be
disappointed.

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Backwoods BBQ

Backwoods BBQ
4300 Green River Road
Corona, CA

Did you ever throw a backyard barbeque where everything just came together perfectly? The meat was sublime, you ate it hot, and you didn't think meat could taste any better? Me neither. But Steve Nolan serves up this sought-after dream daily at Backwoods BBQ. This slightly out of the way goldmine is well worth your attention for lunch or dinner. It's not so hard to find (Green River exit off the 91), it has something for everyone, and the owner is mastering a craft that few people can.

When I first walked in, I immediately felt like Fred Flintstone when he catches a waft of an irresistible aroma in the air and begins to follow it. No matter what you order, you'll have that sensory confidence that it's going to be good. This is a casual place with some very serious Texas-Style Barbeque going on. This kind of barbeque relies heavily upon the preparation of the meat and the grilling technique. It does not find safety or forgiveness behind some thick sauce. This is where the craft comes in. These meats are perfectly marinated. The chicken is even tumbled. The fire is outside, behind the restaurant, and all meats are cooked and/or
smoked over mesquite wood. Fortunately for all, the fire pits are mobile and Backwoods can cater for events large or small. Catering is actually how the company began, and it's still a big part of what they do.

It is meat that I tell you what's good here. Your chicken won't be dry—it is arguably the most impressive chicken breast in town. I found it to be moist and tender, with a distinct mesquite barbeque flavor. It puts a swift end to dull white meat. The St. Louis Style Ribs are excellent. They're great before you add the sauce, as are the Pork Spare Ribs. The Smoked Kilbasa Sausage was one of my very favorites. My internal delicious meter (or IDM) kept taking me back for another bite between each new thing I was supposed to try. The strong, full flavor is
outstanding. It's a perfect compliment to anything else you'll order. The tender and flavorful Carne Asada is way up there, too. It's a favorite among locals for good reason. New items? Try the Carnitas. They are incredibly moist. I say they're one of the best offerings on the board.

Helping you in what could otherwise be a difficult decision, the menu mercifully offers you some BBQ combination entrees. It is not easy to visit this restaurant and have only one kind of meat. Go combo. Owner Steve Nolan takes great care to serve the right-sized cuts of meat. This principle seems to apply both to the grilling size as well as the generous serving sizes. To compliment your meats (since I told you to go combo), there are plenty of wonderful sides to choose from. You'll find potatoes, corn, beans, cole slaw, green salads and even a potato salad better than your mom's.

Backwoods BBQ has a welcome family style to it. There are video and vending games for the kids, as well as TV screens for the adults. A couple of pool tables can be found toward the back, too, if you are so inclined. Live local bands appear on Friday and Saturday nights.

The barbequed meats here are some of the best-cooked and tastiest I have ever had. What's great about this place is that you don't have to dress up, get a sitter, or buff your car with hi-gloss wax to spend an evening here. This is a place to relax and let someone else get smoke in their eyes. There's only a short wait for your food, so crack open some appetizer peanuts and, well, let the shells fall where they may.

Ryan Keane writes exclusively for MyCityCorona.com

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