Ruthie’s All Day, Arlington, Virginia

Ruthie’s All Day is an unusual barbecue place. I’ve been there several times, and posted on different aspects several tiimes. There’s a, well, sophisticated side to it that makes it stand out even among the new very urban barbecue places. How many barbecue places offer tuna tartare and wood-grilled octopus as appetizers? My guess is, one. Ruthies is so distinctive that the DC local paper excluded Ruthies from consideration for its top barbecue list, where it had been a regular, because it’s so … different.

Narrow minds. Sigh. Sure, it’s different, but Ruthie’s serves some of the best barbecue around. Its brisket especially is among the very best in both the Washington area and in all of Virginia. I stopped in most recently for a pork sandwich on my way back from The Bone.

I sat at the counter — the bar, I suppose — and was greeted by the bartender who produced a menu and water cheerfully. He was knowledgeable about the dishes and enthusiastic about barbecue. We chatted, but in the end I stayed with my pork sandwich plan, and chose potato salad as my side.

Now there’s a roll with a lot of sesame seeds. The seeds have a real positive impact on the flavor of breads of all types, as I noted in my post on Cafe Carmela, especially the crustier rolls used in long sandwiches. This appears to be a Martin’s Potato Big Roll, my favorite among soft rolls. Any soft roll will do, but Martin’s potato rolls are the ideal rolls for barbecue sandwiches and burgers of all types. Good start, Ruthie’s.

Let’s take a closer look.

Now, that’s a handsome sandwich., with a lot of good pork, tender, moist, and flavorful. I initially got it without sauce. That’s some of their main sauce on the plate. I asked for a vinegar based sauce — on my last trip, the manager, Todd Salvatore, produced some vinegar-based sauce, which improved the sandwich several notches — but none was available. I tried the mustard sauce, which has a very interesting flavor due, I think, to chipotle, and also the white sauce. I thought that the white sauce was very well seasoned, but really needed a stronger sour/tart element to bring out the smoke in the pork. Still, it was a good sauce, and Ruthie’s makes one of the better pork sandwiches in the area, plus they have a choices of sauces to please just about everyone.

A word on the potato salad. Ruthie’s makes a fine, fine potato salad. The texture of the potato is just right, it is not overdressed, and it’s enlivened by dill, red onion, tiny bits of carrot, and a liberal sprinkle of parsley. And I’ll wager that there’s sour cream in the dressing. This is one of the best potato salads around.

Along with tuna tartare and octopus you find Brunswick stew, cast iron cornbread, and deviled eggs on the menu. Ruthie’s starts the day with biscuit sandwiches, pimiento cheese, and grits on offer. At lunch, the pork and brisket appear, along with macaroni and cheese and other traditional sides, as well as burger, shrimp, steaks and other delights. At dinner, the menu expands upward, but you can still get the basics, like a pork sandwich with a side of pinto beans. To borrow from a great Victorian poem for boys, Ruthie’s “can talk with crowds and keep [its] virtue, or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.” Ruthie’s creates and cooks complex dishes, many from Southern culture, but not that deep inside Ruthie’s is a barbecue place that simply marries smoke to the meat.

I’m a big fan of Ruthie’s. Everything there is good, and many dishes are fantastic. It is indeed a fine dining establishment, but something of a wolf in mink’s clothing. It has an eclectic, sophisticated menu, but it still has Southern soul. Go to Ruthie’s and have some of everything.

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