There should be a jackelope’s head mounted somewhere in D & B Cafe. After all, the little Dix restaurant posts a bright red and white sign on the bathroom door, urging men to perfect their aim and women to sit for the entire performance. Another scatological note adorns the front door.

Don’t let such sophomoric whims deter you, though. For this plain dining room in a nearly unmarked building on the old Lincoln Highway deserves to be a lunchtime destination--especially on fried chicken day.

My plate included a drumstick of timid dark meat buried in a rich brown crust, next to an enormous breast piece packing billowy and juicy white meat under another coating of beautiful, crunchy batter.

Yeah, it’s American commercial chicken, so there’s no real character to the meat. But the crust...

That’s what really sets one restaurant’s fried chicken apart from another, anyway. And here it is crisp and fulfilling, mottled and meaty, with just enough pepper to spark the palate and just enough salt to add interest. There’s no ‘too much’ of anything.

It is, in other words, as good a plate of fried chicken as you are likely to find in the entire panhandle.

Thick mashed potatoes come with an earthy chicken gravy. Or you can settle for their regular version--itself a sturdy, stand on its own roux flavored dollop with a sharp and peppery spine.

Homemade pies share the same balance. Under a less skilled watch, for instance, rhubarb pie turns sour enough to scrunch the keenest poker face. Or it falls prey to sugar as uncertain bakers try to compensate.

At D & B, however, each bite sends an arrow of tart rhurbarb across the palate. But this is slowed almost immediately by a sweeter trailing shot.

It is intense yet soothing--precisely the yin and yang, Heaven and Hell, Bugs and Daffy effect that confounds those who despise rhubarb pie and thrills its aficionados.

Good stuff, in other words...although a question posed by my waitress restored some of the doubts people share about small town cafes.

You see, we want dishes prepared homestyle. We want gravy made from cream or whole milk and all the pan leavings. We want someone double dipping chicken into  seasoned flour, just as grandma did.

We don’t want to hear “do you want ice cream”--and not the expensive kind--“or Cool Whip with that?” Places with jackelopes serve Cool Whip. We want whipped cream.

D & B is very good. And I really want it to be perfect.