It’s All Good At Noah’s Tavern In The Borough

By: Rick Koster
Published on 3/17/2005

It’s sort of pathetic, really, the way we’ve lusted after residential entrée into Stonington Borough. Housing is ludicrously expensive – certainly by our standards – so we’ve opted to try a new theory: we’ll “earn” our way in by opening a business in the Borough, then live over the shop until we can afford one of those houses with the ghost of a sea captain skulking in the attic or that has turrets from which cannons fired at pirates in the 18th century.

Unfortunately, plans to open, first, a Hooters and, then, a fried porkskins processing plant have failed dismally. The good news is that we always feel welcome – and we can always afford – to eat in the tavern at Noah’s. Which is where we adjourned recently to combat the Sunday night blahs with our pals Dan and Alexa.

When you enter Noah’s, you’re in the bar. The hostess station is on the right in the passageway leading to the dining room proper. The pub is tiny: a small, three-sided bar and four small tables. There are red plank walls, dark board floors and an acoustic tile ceiling sporting twin blade fans.

The décor is prime barroom, with beer mirrors and framed comic strips, drawings of local landscapes, and photographs. A television is hoisted high in one corner for Red Sox and Patriots games. Tables are thick wood with filler flowers in small glass vases, and the overall lighting is comfortably dim.

Noah’s has a specific bar menu, though nightly specials from the dining room are available. Our caveat was that we’d avoid the high-end stuff from that side of the room and focus on the cheaper, tavern fare.

You can’t go wrong.

The bar itself was at capacity, which is important because, though we easily snared a table, the bartender typically doubles as a waiter, which means service can be a bit slow. But our guy was always aware, and the mood of the place encourages relaxation.

From the appetizers/soup domain, we scored a half-batch of fresh-made guacamole and toasted, silver dollarsized tortilla chips ($4.95). The guac was available in a variety of heat-factors and ours came fresh and medium as requested. Nuggets of tomato were infused with salsa in the thick, garlicky arrangement, and the flavor had a bit of delayed zest as part of the charm.

Dan and I have shared oysters from some of the finest bivalved mollusk purveyors in the world – Cassamento’s and the Acme in New Orleans – and his three medium-sized Ram Island Noank Oysters on the half shell ($5.50) were chilled, sweet, briny and competitive. They came with the horseradish/cocktailsauce already apportioned and with lemon and drawn butter – but no Tabasco.A cup of the special Virginia Peanut Soup ($3.50) was interesting and ultimately seductive: vaguely Thai, very creamy, with diced chunks of peanuts, carrots, scallions and perhaps sweet potato.

Alexa and The Wife Unit each had a salad. The former enjoyed the Beggar’s Purse ($4.95), which featured exotic greens, philo dough infused with cheese, a softball of bleu cheese atop that, pears, walnuts and a vinaigrette. My wife, Eileen, went with The Wedge ($3.50), a Great Pyramid chuck of frosty iceberg lettuce slathered with Noah’s rich Russian dressing. Almost void of any nutritional value, it was simple and wonderful. Though some of the most fun things on Noah’s bar menu are the sandwiches – and in particular the Reuben and the pan-fried flounder – we decided to do all dinner entrees.

Eileen sampled Welsh Rabbit ($5.95) and received three generous slabs of toast with warm cheddar sauce and two slices of tomato each. The sauce was strong – that’s a compliment – and didn’t congeal through the course of the meal. She asked for the bacon on the side so I could inhale it.

Speaking of me, my BBQ meatloaf ($7.95) was a fine hunk with nothing exotic going on. Finely textured, properly salty ground beef with bits of onion, in a just-this-side-of-crumbly mixture and served with a surprisingly effective ladling of house-made barbecue sauce. A glump of mashed potatoes came nestled against the loaf, and the fun began when I apportioned a bit of each onto the fork for that flavor collision. Dan ordered a char-grilled salmon fillet ($9.95). The tavern size is four ounces of fresh fish with the sauce of the day. Nicely presented with a wasabi drizzle, the marinated, lightly grilled salmon had a neo-Tartar elegance and came with Swiss chards and a bed of white rice. It was very good.

Alexa is a fan of the Noah’s Chinese noodle bowls and selected one with grilled chicken breast ($7.95) from options that include veggies, Teriyaki beef and jumbo shrimp. It comes in a silver bowl the size of a halved John Goodman head and contained al dente noodles, Swiss chards, almonds, scallions, Clementine/tangerine segments, and a generous sampling of tender and marinated chicken slices. The vinegar/soy dressing was tart but not overwhelming, and the arrangement was such that there was no soupage at the bottom of the bowl. Skillful.

From the dessert menu, we shared the delicate, flan-ish Espresson Crème Caramel ($3.95) which was more espresso than caramelly, and the Brown derby ($4.50), which was a bargain through heft and flavor: vanilla ice cream on a Texas toast-sized hunk of chewy chocolate brownie and celebrated with rich choco-sauce and whipped cream.