Stick to BBQ at Starr Pass

The Catalina Barbeque Co. & Sports Bar, which replaced the Catalina Steakhouse in January, serves up exquisite-sounding dishes with reasonable prices.

Most of the barbecue specialities are Kansas City-style, known for its sweet and tangy sauces. You'll also find some St. Louis, North Carolina and Texas styles represented.

Other than barbecue, the comprehensive menu features seafood, steaks, sandwiches and salads. Entrees come with either a jalapeño corn muffin or griddled corn muffin.

This new direction comes courtesy of Executive Chef Chris Brown, who travels statewide to compete in barbecue events. He's been to four so far this year, and will be in Prescott next week for another.

His barbecue won plenty of accolades from us.

Our three-meat barbecue platter ($18) was a platter indeed, with sweet sausage, pulled pork shoulder and brisket burnt ends piled high on the plate. We added a meaty, succulent pork rib for $2.

Our favorite was the tender and flavorful pulled pork that literally fell off the bone. Its juiciness made us sigh.

The brisket burnt ends provided an extra crunch to the meat's smokiness. They were a bit dry - just like they should have been - but we would have liked the jalapeño corn muffin to be less so. We preferred the sweet taste of the griddled corn muffin, sliced in half and grilled.

Three house-made barbecue sauces, including a North Carolina-style vinegar and a sweet Kansas City-style with raw Mexican brown sugar, sit on each table, but we found the barbecue to be plenty flavorful already.

Entrees also come with a choice of one of 14 "extras." We looked forward to the creamed corn after the server said it was house-made.

But the creamed corn had almost no cream. When another serving arrived, it was only a bit more creamy and didn't have that down-home sloppiness we love. But it was a pretty dish - and probably a healthier one - and we enjoyed the sweetness of the flavors and the freshness of the corn.

Our favorite side was the mac and cheese, with pasta prepared with aged Cheddar cheese. It arrived in a piping hot cast-iron dish, and it was the first item we devoured.

Because the eatery changed in January from Catalina Steakhouse to a sports bar - and a lower price point - we ordered a 12-ounce rib-eye steak ($30) for old times sake. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare and came with a sauteed squash medley.

Sitting at a roomy horseshoe-shaped booth and gazing around the expansive restaurant, we wondered why the place wasn't full of diners.

Part of it could be the location: Catalina Barbeque is in the Starr Pass Golf Club and not the actual resort, which is confusing at first. The signage directing people to the restaurant is small, too, but golf club parking is free and abundant.

Another reason could be because Catalina Barbeque falls short as a sports bar. Sure, there is a bar, and the flat-screen televisions were showing World Cup games. But the lack of sports paraphernalia (or fans yelling at the television), along with too much lighting, made this more of a quietly classy restaurant.

We came away impressed with the friendly and efficient servers after two visits. Each possessed a mastery of the menu and neither was shy about offering helpful suggestions. It also was a nice touch that a manager stopped by each time to inquire about our experience.

But some of the non-barbecue dishes disappointed.

The meat on the chicken chipotle nachos, for example, was dry and tough. The side of caramelized onion mashed potatoes needed salt. The dry salmon filet begged for moisture.

On our first visit, we started with a lobster and mango salsa appetizer ($14). The two flavors mixed well, but if the combination is to be eaten with a corn chip, we'd prefer it to be more of a salsa with some liquid or spice, or both.

And we tried, for our vegetarian readers, the pasta primavera ($14), but the nicely sauteed vegetables couldn't save the slightly overcooked shell pasta and humdrum sauce.

If you are drinking, order a beer rather than a bottle of wine. We were told the wine list had partly carried over from the steakhouse, but a BBQ place should have more zinfandel and shiraz options to accompany the new flavors of the menu.

And the prices on the wine menu were marked up too much - often 300 or 400 percent. Even if it is a resort, it's still Tucson.

To end our gut-busting meals, we first chose banana peanut butter cheesecake ($6), a very rich piece coated in chocolate with caramel dots on the plate.

That was a sweet ending, but we were won over by the funnel cake sundae ($6), a slab of funnel cake topped by two giant scoops of house-made vanilla ice cream drizzled with chocolate. The combination of cinnamon from the funnel cake and the creamy sweetness of the ice cream made us forget how full we already were - and was tastier than funnel cakes we'd tried at fairs.

Review

• What: Catalina BBQ Co. and Sports Bar.

• Where: 3645 W. Starr Pass Blvd., 670-0444.

• Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sundays.

• Family call: The kids will fit right in - there's a fun $8 children's menu that includes a one-meat BBQ plate, burger or hot dog. Kids' meals come with a drink and a side of fries, fruit or carrot sticks.

• Noise level: Fairly quiet.

• Vegetarian choices: A couple, but come on - it's a BBQ joint.

• Dress: Casual.

• Reservations: Accepted.

• Prices: Entrees range from $13-$32; sandwiches from $9 to $13 and salads from $6 to $14.

• Wine list: A dozen by the glass and about 80 by the bottle.

• Take home: You can buy bottles of sauce for $8, and spicy and all-purpose rubs for $4.