No, you may not meekly tap on the kitchen door of an Italian-American family in the Knightsville section of Cranston, praise that delectable aroma, and ask to be seated. Not quite.

The next best thing is to drop in at Mike’s Kitchen. However, in the hallowed Rhode Island tradition of inadequate signage, there is no sign for the place. (Hey — if ya don’t know how to get there, you don’t belong. As soon as we turned onto restaurant-bedecked Cranston Street, we could smell garlic, so I suppose the worthy are expected to separate the strands of scent.) You can cruise up and down Randall Avenue all night, and if you don’t know that the restaurant is in the Tabor-Franchi VFW Post 239, you’re outta luck.

Nevertheless, the large room was well occupied during recent lunchtime and midweek dinner visits. Flags and trophies and plaques, the veteran bona fides, flank the bar in the back. Rules, like mama used to make, are posted at the entrance: don’t take your seats until a table is cleared; and don’t take an open table until your entire party has arrived (to prevent tables being tied up on a busy night while people are still at home deciding on the right shirt or earrings).

Offerings are split between a large pair of marker boards at one corner of the room and laminated menus placed before you. Some items clearly came out of neighborhoods and nostalgia: a broccoli rabe and provolone sandwich ($5.50); and not just veal prepared française and Marsala, but also veal with peas ($9.95). A separate waitress takes orders and collects the money, by the way, for wine and cocktails, so don’t forget to tip. Try the Valpolicella ($4), a simple, velvety table wine.

Lunch is the real bargain here, with generous portions of some of the dinner entrées at absurdly low prices. For example, I had fork-tender veal Marsala ($6.95), which swam in a thick, flavorful gravy. It would have been satisfactorily sized as a main course in the evening — when it’s $11.95 — even without its pasta side. As well as spaghetti, linguine, and ziti, you may choose cavatelli, toothsome little canoes of fresh pasta.

Appetizers off the beaten menu include snail salad ($6.95,) baccala salad ($9.95), and fried smelts ($6.95), as well as heaping platters of fried calamari ($8.50) which kept passing our table, greaseless rings with a few tiny tentacles for decoration. The crab cakes ($6.95), two hamburger-sized portions, didn’t lose their flavor amidst the breading. Their accompany-

ing chunky marinara had a fascinating smokiness that didn’t overpower the seafood taste.

For dinner, Johnnie felt like having a simple sole française ($10.95). Choosing salad instead of pasta or potato and vegetable, she started with a plate of romaine lettuce that contained pickled beets and pickled bell peppers as well as ordinary ingredients. The sole filets were tender and rich, the butter coming across even more than the lemon juice. Our guest from Australia chose the baked gnocchi Sorrentino ($10.95). (You don’t want to know what aboriginal delicacy these light potato dumplings reminded her of.) Somehow the slices of eggplant retained their intensely earthy flavor in the mix.

I went for twofold nostalgia with the baccala zuppa with polenta ($14.95). The first part harkened back to my grandmother’s kitchen on holidays, when she would bake the reconstituted salt cod in tomatoes and onions, as superbly done here: chewy but flavorful. (She added raisins to help sweeten the sauce, but chef Mike Lepizzera ups the ante with prunes!)

But the magical part is the polenta. Please order it as an appetizer — it’s no longer separate on the menu, but maybe if everyone begs we can get it back. Fortified not just with butter and Romano cheese but also olive oil and chicken stock, this apotheosis of cornmeal has been called "the best in the world" by the chef-proprietors of the celebrated Al Forno. (Not unlikely, judging from our samplings in Italy this year.)

You’ll be fed well enough that dessert will be merely an afterthought, as it is on the menu. Instead of a list of desserts there is ice cream, from a nut roll to assorted ice cream pies. We each had a chocolate-covered bon bon (95 cents each) and enjoyed sharing a slice of spumoni ($2.95). After being fed by Mike, we would have settled for a bowl of ice cubes.

Bill Rodriguez can be reached at bill@billrod.com.