Ruth’s Place: Food Good for the Soul

“Hi there, Ruth!” exclaims one of Ruth Davenport’s regulars, bursting into her tiny downtown Santa Ana cafe. As he enters, he triggers a blast from a contraption called an air door, a sort of ventilator that switches on whenever the front door is opened. The result is a loud whoosh, which you may hear several times during a meal at Ruth’s Place.

Meanwhile, Davenport is busy cooking behind her two-stool counter, but not too busy to return the greeting with a winning smile. Eating at Ruth’s Place is something close to a love feast. The diners--African Americans, Latinos, whites and a few Asian Americans, from nearby Little Saigon--are simply crazy about her, and the feeling appears to be mutual.

The reason is obvious. This tiny storefront soul-food emporium is in a class by itself; it’s simply the best restaurant around for fried chicken, oxtails, collard greens, corn bread and a raft of other staples from the American South. Furthermore, chef-owner Davenport just loves what she does, and the affection transfers to her customers.

Chat with her and you’ll discover that she learned to cook as a girl in Alabama. She runs the kitchen by herself, as she must--it’s not big enough for two people. In fact, the whole restaurant is shockingly small, barely big enough for its two tables, seven chairs, three or four stockpots and chest-high black-and-white-tiled counter.

Davenport, a fashion plate who works in a variety of sporty hats, immediately pegged me as a newcomer. “You’ve never been here before, have you?” she asked, looking me straight in the eye. In a matter of minutes, I was downing an order of terrific Southern fried chicken with collard greens and candied yams under her approving eye. I guess I’m not a newcomer anymore.

The menu lists half a dozen entrees daily. One day it might be spare ribs in a subtly spicy homemade barbecue sauce, another day that wonderful Southern fried chicken. Sometimes Davenport gives you squares of unbeatable corn bread, flaky, not too sweet and slathered with butter. On other days, you’ll get fluffy baking powder biscuits fresh from the oven.

Despite the peerless fried chicken, the dish I’ll come back for again and again is oxtails. The braised beef, powerfully meaty and so tender it falls off the bone, comes in a rich, spicy broth. To my taste, this is as impressive a dish as a Viennese tafelspitz.

True, the presentation isn’t much. A Viennese restaurant might present beef as flavorful as this under a silver dome, but Ruth’s Place sends it out in a humble plastic cup. Inside the cup you’ll find man-sized chunks of flesh and bone, with marrow and tendon still attached. The exquisite broth tastes of celery, carrot, onion and meat juices.

The oxtails are normally served with two side dishes. Ordinarily I wouldn’t turn up my nose at any of Ruth’s side dishes, but I prefer to enjoy these oxtails all by themselves.

*

The fried chicken is classy in its own right. The chicken pieces are not breaded but dusted with flour, making for a lighter, more elegant version of fried chicken than most others around town.

Davenport’s fried chicken is crisp but not dry, intense but not overwhelming. Chicken, expertly floured and seasoned and deep-fried to perfection, is more satisfying than just about anything I know.

Another of the chef’s triumphs is file gumbo, a dark, thick, aromatic soup chock-full of shrimp, crab, hot sausage, chicken and beef. At $6.95, this is the priciest item on the menu. (That’s for a 12-ounce serving. If you care to spend $16.95, you can get a quart.)

A couple of entrees could be improved. The spare ribs can be tough, and they taste as if they’ve been finished off in a deep fryer, a technique that has a tendency to dry pork out. The crunchy catfish and snapper are deep-fried in a crisp cornmeal coating, and the filets are good enough but not very distinctive. That’s about as harsh as I can be about the food here.

And I have no complaints about the side dishes. The black-eyed peas are hearty and appealingly fluffy, and the collard greens, my favorite side here, have a lingering, smoky aftertaste from the tasso ham and smoked sausage that Davenport throws in her stockpot from time to time. Her New Orleans-style red beans and rice, a very filling dish, is mildly spiced.

Among the other side dishes: home-style macaroni and cheese littered with bits of sticky yellow cheese; large, cylindrical hush puppies, fried in lard, with creamy yellow interiors; green beans slowly cooked with stewed onions.

If you see that it’s available, save room for a huge, sugar-glazed square of homemade lemon cake, about twice as dense as you’ll get out of a Duncan Hines box. Most days there will be a down-home peach cobbler, made in the crust-to-fruit proportion of about 3 to 1. Don’t bother to ask for whipped cream. Davenport considers that way uptown for her place.

Ruth’s Place is inexpensive. Lunches are $2.95 to $4.95. Dinners are $5.95 to $8.95.

* RUTH’S PLACE

* 1236 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana.

* (714) 953-9454.

* Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

* Cash and personal checks only.