Soul-Searching Days Can Come to an End at Ruth’s Place

A few years back, a series of TV and radio commercials poked fun at the “same place, same thing” eating habits of automaton-like office workers. Cute idea--except the ads were for a fast-food Mexican chain. Any Southern Californian whose idea of alternative cuisine is Mexican fast food probably considers Swiss cheese exotic.

But honest-to-goodness soul food? Now there’s something you don’t see every day, Chauncey.

Ruth Davenport, who calls herself “just a country girl” from Alexander City, Ala., is aiming to put that right at Ruth’s Place in Santa Ana, a modest storefront about a mile west of the Civic Center complex.

Davenport, her children and other assorted relatives opened the place last summer, and she is there six days a week, usually poking around the kitchen or engaging in friendly chat while serving up Southern staples, to eat there or take out, such as as home-cooked fried chicken (lightly spiced and moist, not crunchy), gumbo, barbecued ribs (pork and beef), hot links, oxtails over red beans and rice, fried shrimp and catfish.

And that’s just for starters. Customers can sit on one of four bar stools at the cozy counter overlooking her kitchen while Davenport fries up harder-to-find specialties such as buffalo fish and whiting fish. And if you’re persistent--and adventuresome--she’ll let you know when she’s stewing up a batch of her chitterlings (after making it through half a plate, this Southern California boy had to run home and check Webster’s to realize he’d just gulped down fried pig entrails).

Two small tables on a black-and-white tile floor technically can accommodate up to eight sit-down customers. Six is probably more realistic, though, given the way Ruth’s honors the Southern custom of piling food on plates deep and wide.

Plan to work out before and after you hoist one of her plates heaped with two or three firm, juicy and meaty oxtails plopped on a bed of thick red beans and rice, flanked by a square or two of her dense, barely sweet corn bread--for $5.95. The most expensive dinners are $6.95 (shrimp or fish filet). All dinners come with the corn bread and two side orders (choose black-eyed peas, collard greens, cole slaw, corn on the cob, baked beans, green beans, potato salad or macaroni salad). Daily specials start at $2.59.

And dessert? Sweet potato pie and bean pie taste like they’re straight from south of the Mason-Dixon line. Mysteriously, there are no key lime or pecan pies--signature Southern specialties. Ruth does, however, offer a rich, almost black, chocolate cake, a moist and tangy lemon cake and peach cobbler.

Try finding any of that at a drive-through taco joint.

Ruth’s Place, 1236 Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. Open Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m to 7 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 9 p.m.; and Sundays, 1 to 6 p.m. (714) 953-9454.