Rachel's Pastanova

Tardy, but tasty

by Bill Rodriguez

(401) 351-8585, 71 Hope St., Providence
Open Tues-Fri, 5-10 p.m.; Sat, 4-10 p.m.
Major credit cards
Handicapped access

Some appreciated restaurants are like good, quirky friends; Fred and Frieda are wildly entertaining when they finally show up, so why not shrug off their habitual tardiness as a harmless eccentricity? Just don't make a date involving curtain times.

Rachel's Pastanova is like that. The menu tells you that all dishes are made to order and politely begs your patience for any delay. This is a little understatement, like the waiting room receptionist who says it'll be a few minutes when the dentist is really an hour behind. And like finally getting that nagging tooth pulled, the relief -- and pleasure -- was a treat when the food finally arrived on a recent visit to Rachel's.

The Hope Street restaurant is as comfortably informal as the Fox Point neighborhood it borders. There are salmon pink walls decorated with good artwork for sale, and colorful, logoed aprons with various patterns, which are available as are T-shirts and wicker gift baskets, filled with the numerous varieties of Rachel's kitchen-made, gourmet pasta. The place is nothing if not enterprising. A cooler case contains the day's fresh ravioli, which, among the choices on our visit, held two striped varieties, lemon-dill-crab and spinach-cheese.

Ten minutes after being told to seat ourselves, I wandered over to the cooler to ask for a couple of sodas (Rachel's is BYOB, with a package store nearby). In another 10 minutes the ginger ales arrived and we could order our starters. Both in-shell shrimp ($7.95) and mussels steamed in white wine ($6.95) are offered, which is a good sign -- you lose your regular customers if these aren't reliably fresh.

Johnnie wanted to sample the veggie-stuffed mushrooms, since this restaurant is on every local vegetarian's itinerary for its numerous selections. At $1.75 each, the mushrooms are pricey considering their simplicity and how a modest plate of them would add up. My counterpart liked hers, a medium-sized field cap filled with zucchini, red pepper and such -- steamed rather than minced and seasoned -- surrounded by four spinach leaves for symmetry.

I had to try "Rachel's Chicken Wings" ($5.75), since it's a signature dish. Excellent decision. Ten plump pieces, fried just right, under a finger-sucking sweet teriyaki sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds. I was so glad Johnnie didn't want her fair share. Yours truly scarfed 'em, but I would have meditated upon each seed or eked out the salad afterward, had I known it would be a while before our main course would come.

Ninety minutes after we arrived, not noticing my un-cleared appetizer plate, our waiter (don't you just love that job description?) came over to tell us our order was on final approach. Ten minutes later, our dishes showed up. Steaming hot, no signs of jet lag. Both were yummy.

My counterpart had the ravioli ($13.95), selecting the portobello-stuffed variety, which is available every day. Like the pasta ($9.95, flavored selections $2 more), it comes with your choice of three toppings (additional ones $1.25 each) and sauce. Johnnie had the pesto, with artichokes, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes. The tomatoes were oddly salty, but the combination worked as a whole, especially the plump, two-bite rectangular ravioli. Other sauces are chunky tomato, tomato with ground beef, garlic and oil, and white or pink cream.

I did even better. Not only is the ginger garlic chicken ($11.95) a bargain, it's quite good. I don't know what the pieces of breast meat are marinated in, but they were tender and tasty. Shrimp can be substituted for $3 more. Neither of the headlined ingredients overpowered the sauce, which was pleasantly sweet and worked nicely with the wide carrot shavings, and mushrooms and broccoli.

As we can tell by the restaurant's name, pasta is the main offering here. But for those who want to relegate that to the background, you can order baked stuffed shrimp, pork chops, or even sirloin steak, and have the pasta on the side. Of course, that would be like visiting the Vatican and requesting an audience with a cardinal, but to each his own.

Since neither the Black Forest cake nor the apple pie is made there -- Rachel's mom, Victoria, used to make a sweet potato pie to die for -- we decided to abrogate our vicarious duty to you, dear reader, and forego dessert. Besides, dawn in the city is boring.

The place does make good pasta, though. Remember -- you can call ahead and order it to go.