Flavors BOLD at Krazy Mike's

LITTLE ROCK — The windows and door of Krazy Mike's are all silvered over and reflective, so there's no way of seeing from the outside what's inside.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the decor at Krazy Mike's is closer to that of Red Lobster (and we mean that in a good way) than the plain-and-simple setup typical of most shrimp-and-wing places.

One side of the restaurant is paneled in wood; the other side is partially lined in brick. Most of the kitchen area is sided with corrugated aluminum. In between, tabletops are covered in maroon vinyl; chairs and booth-backs are clad in blue vinyl with maroon accents. Either of the two flatscreen TVs could be showing news, sports or a movie, depending on the whim of whoever has control of the remote.

There's a near-riot of fish- and wharf-related decorations on the walls and on the countertops, including a gull-doll atop a piling and our favorite, a stylized wooden sturgeon, which used to sit atop the sneeze guard on the front counter but has since moved to the top of a refrigerator in the partially open kitchen to make room for extra bottles of hot sauce.

You can spot sandy-haired Mike right away - his visage appears in caricature on the sign and even on the register receipts. He's mostly working in the kitchen but will also come out into the front of the house to make sure his customers are satisfied.

The menu is just as surprising. And we're not just talking about the distinctive New Orleans accent.

Yes, there's the fried wings, from 10 ($6.50) to 100 ($54.50), in eight sauces, ranging from hot (Original Hot, Ranch Hot and "U-on-Ur-Own Hot") to sweetish (pineapple teriyaki and Thai chili).

And yes, there's the fried shrimp - Fried Gulfcoast Fantail Shrimp, in fact, "brought in weekly from Bon Secour, Ala.," served in baskets of six ($9.50), nine ($11.50) or 12 ($13.50), or by the quarter, half or whole pound.

There are also fried oysters, fried catfish and fried chicken tenders.

But look closer and you'll see that there's a lot of stuff on the menu that isn't fried: You can have your catfish filets, skewered shrimp and chicken breasts either char-grilled or blackened. There is even a baked fish entree.

Krazy Mike also makes po' boys. And chicken and Andouille sausage gumbo. Deep into the printed menu you'll find a list of $5 items that includes red beans and rice and pinto beans and corn bread.

Just about everything, with the exception of perhaps a couple of side items like baked beans, is cooked when you order it. So everything tastes pretty fresh. You may have to wait a few minutes longer for some items than you might elsewhere, but everything we had was worth it.

The wings are good, though not extraordinary.

They're reasonably meaty and fried crisp before being dunked into whatever sauce you order. We divided our 10-piece order between Original Hot, in an unthickened Louisiana hot sauce with a little more kick than flavor, and the sweet-and-tangy pineapple teriyaki, which clung a little better to the wings and is a good choice if you're avoiding spicy.

An order of wings supposedly comes with two dips (we got a tangy, thick, slightly gelatinous bleu cheese and didn't ask for a second, but the other choices are ranch and honey mustard); two large sides - choice of pretty ordinary baked beans; cole slaw; a pleasant potato salad; rice; fresh-cut, shoestring, skin-on fries; or grilled vegetables (sauteed, really) consisting of carrots, onions, red bell pepper strips and, alas, zucchini and squash; and fresh bread, which the kitchen neglected to give us.

The firm, medium-size fantail shrimp are fried in a nicely spicy batter. Our basket came with slaw, fries, a couple of crisp and tasty hush puppies and a puzzling small cup of slightly gummy cheese dip with nothing in particular to dip into it. (We tried dipping bits of hush puppy and fries and even wasted a shrimp without finding a match.)

The blackened shrimp skewer ($13.50) was wonderful, with just the right degree of spice. The promised side of grilled onions and peppers, unfortunately, also came mixed with zucchini and squash.

We wondered so much about the Baked Fish Raggio ($11.50) that we had to order it, and we were delighted. It's a seasoned and herbed catfish filet (sufficiently moist, delicate and flaky that we thought at first it might be tilapia), baked atop what is essentially a spicy crab cake, a little gooey in the middle but crisp on the bottom.

We picked rice and grilled vegetables for our two sides - we left most of the rice, which was unadorned and unaccented, and picked out the interesting portions of the grilled vegetables (leaving behind the squash and zucchini).

Service-wise, Krazy Mike's is still finding its feet. You order at the register and get a number that, if they're busy in the kitchen, somebody calls out when your order comes up and you fetch yourself; if they're not so busy, they'll actually bring your food directly to your table.

The kitchen does seem to have a regular blank spot when it comes to bread - we noted that we never got any with our wings; Mike noticed after glancing at our table that an order of garlic bread we should have gotten with our blackened shrimp hadn't yet appeared, and he rectified that in fairly short order.

He also more than made up for the kitchen sort of losing our shrimp-basket order on our first visit by about doubling the number of shrimp.