That comforting aphorism -- "The more things change, the more they stay the same" -- is certainly true for Olga's Cup and Saucer. From its humble beginnings as a neighborhood bakery/cafe in Little Compton (1988) to its garden corner in Providence's Jewelry District (1997), Olga's has never wavered from its determination to produce good quality bread, using stone-ground flours and "natural leavenings," i.e., sourdough starters and their cousins. Olga's breads are almost a sensory overload, because their textures and tastes ring changes on so many long-forgotten culinary memories.

The baguette-like filone, thickly studded with sesame seeds, sets off bells from breakfast rolls in Athens, the multi-grain loaf (with its multi-seeds of flax, sesame, and sunflower) chimes in with open-face sandwiches from Bonn. But the golden raisin-fennel makes the biggest clang, with raisin bread toast after school and boxes of Good & Plenty at the Saturday afternoon movies.

Tearing ourselves away from lusting after the breads (rosemary, olive and roasted garlic boules are no slouches, either), we set to the task at hand: lunch, when soups, sandwiches, and salads change daily; entrees are made to order from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. You select and pay for your order at the counter before receiving a numbered wooden triangle to take to your table. The day we were there, this system worked fine, but friends have complained of long waits and glitches, which can especially frustrating if you've left a busy office to grab some sustenance.

We happened -- fortunately -- to have enough time for such delays. Bill chose an intriguing-sounding lamb stew, Moroccan lamb tagine ($5.95). I picked Thai noodles with shrimp ($8.75). And we both succumbed to the jewel-like colors of the roasted beet and Clementine salad ($3.25).

We started out with a bowl of curried tomato-basmati rice soup ($4.95), an intricate medley of onions, celery, carrots, zucchini, and the two announced ingredients. Soothing and yummy; not over-curried so that you'd miss the veggies. It was accompanied by three small chunks of that wonderful multi-grain.

The diced beets had been roasted until quite tender, then cooled, and tossed with Clementine segments, a bit of oil and fresh-chopped spearmint. The mint theme led nicely into Bill's Moroccan tagine. The lamb pieces were simmered with saffron, cumin, and preserved lemons in a hearty gravy, and the whole was served over couscous. It was enticing enough to keep down the whimpers on the other side of the table because I had ordered the equivalent of Bill's weekly dietary requirement: Thai noodles.

The peanut and chili-oil sauce on the udon noodles and vegetables was just right: a little sweet, a little hot, lip-smacking good. Grated carrots, small sugar-snap peas, slices of cucumbers, and diced red and yellow peppers made this a sunny dish. The Thai spices on the grilled shrimp made it mouth-warming as well.

The cheeriness of Olga's yellow walls was enhanced by shafts of light pouring through the paned windows hung with lacey cafe curtains. Olga's all-season decor begins and ends with the funky furniture and playful kitchen racks created by co-owner Becky Wagner. Looking into the kitchen, you can see a large wrought-iron holder for cooking pots, its top rail decorated with the whimsical out-of-perspective cups and saucers that have become Olga's logo. A tall, multi-shelved wire rack with characteristic whorls and twists holds the day's bread behind the counter, a much smaller one the hand-made pizzas on the counter.

The same iron work forms the base for the round tables whose tops are mosaics of hand-painted ceramic discs. Wagner's other touches include the leaves at the end of the wrought iron curtain rods, small wall racks near the counter, a coat hook in the bathroom.

Co-owner and namesake Olga Bravo is a painter, with an MFA from RISD. Her eye for color, especially with pizzas and fruit pies, was already evident at the Little Compton location; she's gone full-speed ahead with the salad case in the Providence cafe, which displays more than a half-dozen salads in the full spectrum of the vegetable and herb palette. Her knack for composition came into its own in developing the breads, the unusual sandwiches and the tempting desserts.

Ah, the desserts. Cakes and cookies of such lingering flavors that they begin to toll off food memories again: dense tortes and pound cakes from Germany, bread pudding and shortbreads from the British Isles, variations on chocolate chip, oatmeal, and peanut butter cookies from across the USA. After considering banana-chocolate chunk cake or sweet potato gingerbread, we settled for two popular items: the lemon marzipan torte ($2.95) and the double-chocolate bread pudding ($3.25), both as scrumptious as they sound.

When Olga's bakers are doing pies -- variations on peach and berry in the warm months, and on apple and pumpkin in the cold months -- they are not to be missed, with their all-butter crusts and packed fillings. Special occasion cakes, chocolate or lemon, with a filling of raspberry preserves, come in four sizes, and are great for celebrations. But for me, that golden raisin-fennel loaf makes any day a celebration -- and it's really much better than Good & Plenty.

Issue Date: February 21 - 27, 2003