Ruthie's Bar & Grill

Good and cheap eats in Johnston

by Bill Rodriguez

1478 Atwood Ave., Johnston, (401) 274-RUTH
Open Mon-Sat, 11:30 a.m.- 11 p.m. Sun, 5-11 p.m.
Major credit cards
Sidewalk access

Looking for a new restaurant that lifts your eyebrows can be a lot like what it was to open cereal boxes as a kid. For every way-cool Captain Crunch decoder ring, there were 50 lame trinkets that were an affront to childhood acquisitiveness. It's similar with the blurring array of eating emporiums that flash past us on urban stretches like so many neon casino signs. Why take a chance?

So Ruthie's Bar & Grill was quite a surprise -- and delight -- to come across. To be honest, we didn't just serendipitously happen upon it like starving gourmands crawling through the desert. No, a couple of friends who knew of the place took us in hand. There it was, on the farthest track of deepest Atwood Avenue, in a CVS shopping plaza, looking as unimposing as a shoe store. If you're hesitant, peer into the big storefront windows and take it all in: the dark wood bar; seven tables with comfortable-looking green-padded chairs; a couple of food posters on the walls, above white oak wainscoting as spick-and-span as stainless steel. Think of Hemingway's clean, well-lighted place, a la Johnston.

A cursory look over the lunch menu shows mostly the usual suspects, from burgers to sausage and pepper sandwiches. But ask and you'll find that the $3.50 burger is eight ounces of Black Angus. Look at how that the last pasta item, at $4.95, is under a decidedly un-diner-like pink vodka sauce. When you notice the proclamation, "Tripe every Saturday," you know this is not your ordinary bar and grill.

Bar snacks dominate the list of appetizers on the evening menu as well: nachos and potato skins, cheese fries. and "Johnny's famous" chicken wings, sautéed in olive oil, as well as the traditional Buffalo wings.

But go at dinnertime, as we did, and get a real treat -- or four or five. That's the modest number of entrées that were offered one recent Monday. Not too many for a single chef in the kitchen, not so much that the place would go broke throwing out the leftovers after slow nights. When we got there about 7, something called chicken Joseph and a couple of other items had already been rubbed off the chalkboard, but three seafood dishes remained, so we had them all. (You can also get three kinds of pastas, with three different sauces, plus meatballs, cutlets, etc.)

The soup of the day was chicken ($2/$3), dense with vegetables and little tubes of pasta, and quite flavorful. A real treat was a special, tender baccala salad ($4.95), with so much of the reconstituted dried cod heaped upon Romaine lettuce that there was plenty for the four of us.

The prices on the main dishes were ridiculously low, each at least 10 bucks less than what you'd expect in some place with tablecloths and cloth napkins. But economy was the least of the offerings. The baked scrod ($7.95) was cooked just right, and its tasty, buttery topping looked like Saltine crackers. It came with diced fresh carrots and dark roasted potatoes. On my left, I was pleased to sample the shrimp Sorrento ($8.95), the penne smothered with plenty of medium-size shrimp, artichokes, fresh tomatoes, and mushrooms in a scrumptious white wine sauce.

Us two guys at the table chose the most manly offering: a baked squid over linguini ($7.95) that would have made Captain Nemo gulp. The thing was nearly as thick and long as my forearm. Tentacle-free, with an anchovy, olive and breadcrumb stuffing, it was slathered with a red pepper-hot marinara sauce and surrounded by tiny squid rings, like minnows paling around a porpoise. It was barely cooked and tender. What a brave item to put on the menu, I thought. Delicious.

Of the half-dozen or so desserts our helpful waitress ticked off, it was the peanut butter pie, oddly, rather than the carrot cake or tiramisu, that was made there. Along with a wedge of spumoni, we had some of the pie ($3.50), and it was perfectly respectable, with a nice chocolate bottom crust.

Ruthie's opened about a year ago, named after the wife and mother, respectively, of chef John Furia (who does dinners Sunday through Tuesday) and co-chef and son J.P. (who cooks on the other nights). They've worked in other restaurants, but this is the first time they started one. Business is good, John says, so word must have gotten around. He takes pride in serving everything to order, such as the calamari from his late Neapolitan grandmother's recipe. The thought of how some cooks prepare even small squid, with an unnecessary similarity to sliced tire tube, sets his head to shaking. It has to be cooked either very quickly or very slowly, he says, with trouble assured in between.

Let's hope that the Furias don't run out of Nonna's recipes. While you're at it, pray that the place doesn't get too popular. While I'm thinking about it, do me a favor and burn this review when you're done.