**1/2 Smokin' Rock BBQ
944 Cromwell Ave., Rocky Hill, (860) 372-4776, smokinrockbbq.com

I'm all for understatement, but I think Smokin' Rock BBQ might need to turn up the volume a little bit, just to get people's attention. You know, increase the heat. Send out some smoke signals maybe. This Rocky Hill barbecue restaurant is almost camouflaged, tucked as it is next to The Rock, a nightclub. Without the little real-estate-for-sale-style sign advertising BBQ near the road, you'd never guess what was happening inside. The dark windows and beer banners say bar; it's only the dimly lit neon BBQ light that gave us confidence we were at the right address.

At the front door a dry-erase board points with arrows to doors in opposite directions — bar to the right, restaurant to the left. Once inside, though, it's all BBQ joint, complete with country kitsch décor, squirt bottles of sauce and butcher's paper for table cloths. Noticing our slight confusion as we stood near the entrance, a man who was walking out at the same time made a point of telling us the food was good, to re-assure us. One waitress was handling the room, which had about four booths along the wall and a small number of tables occupying the center space.

Smokin' Rock BBQ serves fresh-squeezed lemonade. It's pleasantly tangy and not oversweet. The same can't be said of many other offerings there. The cornbread, for instance, was so sugary it tasted almost like angel food cake. And, enjoyable as it was, the maple butter that accompanied several dishes only added to the overall dessert effect. Corn fritters were more like batter-fried and bite-size pieces of kernel-studded fried dough. These make hushpuppies (sweet fried cornmeal balls) seem sort of restrained. Smokin' Rock also serves wings, fried shrimp and mac-and-cheese bites for starters, as well as nachos, quesadillas, onion rings, and riblets. The selection of sides includes slaw, actual long-cooked collard greens, baked beans (not too sweet) and more. A special side of mashed cauliflower was surprisingly rich tasting and substantial. We also tried a fried fish sandwich that maybe got a little over crisped in the fryer.

Your best bet for covering all of the goodies from the smoker is to try one of the sprawling platters. Our Smokin' Sampler Platter provided a taste of the ribs, some chicken, beef brisket and a generous heap of pulled pork, all of it decoratively squirted with a mild barbecue sauce. None of these were aggressively spicy or powerfully smoky. The chicken was nicely grilled. And the ribs were tender, but I found the pulled pork to have a little too much watery moisture. The thinly sliced brisket was the winner. Smokin' Rock has a South Carolina-style mustard BBQ sauce on hand, which is a good way of increasing the tang quotient.

In the end, it's not like the candylike notes are out of place at a BBQ restaurant. Sweetness tends to counterbalance the other flavors of smoke and spice and vinegary tang that make BBQ so tasty. Consequently, Smokin' Rock might benefit from jacking up the smoke and fire and zing in order to equal off the sugar rush. And you can save your cornbread and maple butter for dessert.

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