When Phillip’s Bar-B-Que was first described to me as a “hole in the wall”, I always dismissed the description as a clever way to say that the floor was sticky and all the tables were covered with gang tagging. Little did I know that the description was literal. After placing your order inside Phillip’s, Leimert Park, a mysterious hand delivers your food through a tiny hole with a doggy door flap.

Indeed, the location is a takeout stand. It has no tables and the wait for food is long, long. I’d been told the wait could be as long as 45 minutes. My buddy Marc and I waited for 15 minutes. In that time we learned the following:

• You can call in your order and make a quick pickup. In fact, most people just call in their orders. Oops.
• The Phillip’s on Crenshaw and Adams, which we passed on the way to the Leimert Park walk-in closet, was in fact another location and not a knockoff. This information came in handy the next day when I decided to give a couple more items a taste.
• Anthony Hamilton will soon be appearing in concert with Santana.

The Meal

We got our food and decided to eat in the car. I couldn’t wait. We came to get sloppy with some ribs. We drove around a bit and finally ended up in some shade next to a McDonald’s. Marc was playing Mary J. Blige on the iPod. I was ready for battle.

Before I continue with the review, I should mention that I have a bit of a “thing”, some say phobia, with being in constant body contact with warm food or cold drinks. I hate putting takeout food on my lap or holding a cold drink for a prolonged period of time. Am I the only one out in the world with this affliction? It gives me a unique type of anxiety. A kind of “ginger ale in the head”, so to speak. Eating in the car would prove a chore.

With this phobia and the conscious effort to not get sauce on my shirt (I ended up with two stains), I feared I was not in the right frame of mind to properly eat.

Who am I kidding. I tried to not to let said phobia color my opinion of the offerings. In two days’ time at two locations, I tried the following…

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