I’m officially ending a three-day Rutabegorz bender today.
In case you don’t know, Ruta’s is a local institution that’s been around since the early 1970s when a group of hippies opened a coffee shop in downtown Fullerton, then successfully saved the building from demolition.
Since then, those hippies also have opened restaurants in Tustin and Orange and have expanded their offerings to include home cooked American favorites, vegetarian specialties and my favorites: gigantic salads that come in bowls bigger than my head.
It’s with one of these salads — the chicken avocado — where my bender began Wednesday afternoon over lunch with an old friend in Orange.
My favorite thing about this salad ($10.45) is the half of an avocado sitting atop a heap of fresh vegetables and lettuce. I like to stir the salad around a little so that the avocado mixes with bits of shredded mozzarella and American cheese, then sticks onto pieces of lettuce, walnuts and tender chicken. The cauliflower and cucumber chunks are big and perfect for dipping separately in a side of homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing.
My friend’s favorite salad here is the Mexican Caesar ($9.75). It comes with Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese, tortilla strips and pepitas (squash seeds). He slathers his in the homemade Caesar dressing.
I never put dressing on my salads at Ruta’s because I like to save the left overs and can’t stand soggy lettuce. And I can never finish more than half the bowl.
So I got a box for my leftovers and ate the second half of this chicken avocado for lunch on Thursday afternoon. (A tip: Eat all the avocado on day one because it will brown in the refrigerator).
Usually this is where my Ruta’s salad cycle ends.
Except this time, my friend ordered a wrap instead of a salad. I had major food envy. So this afternoon when lunch time came around, I decided to go back and get a wrap of my own.
I chose the Turkey Avocado ($8.45): Fresh turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, avocados and crumbly blue cheese stuffed inside a whole wheat tortilla. This also comes with Medeterranean dressing, which tasted like Italian with an extra bite. I passed on the dressing — the flavor of the blue cheese was strong enough.
This also came with a little pasta salad (with black olives!). Pretty good.
Ruta’s has a huge menu, so I’m not trying to give an overview of it here. I like this place, though, because it’s got a quaint atmosphere, serves fresh food and because it seems like everyone’s got a story about it. If you’ve got one, share it here …
Fullerton
211 North Pomona
Fullerton, CA 92832
Phone: 714.738.9339
Fax: 714.871.1580
Tustin
158 West Main
Tustin, CA 92780
Phone: 714.731.9807
Fax: 714.544.3325
Orange
264 North Glassell
Orange, CA 92866
Phone: 714.633.3260
Up north, I’ve been thinking about Rutabegorz for the past week! Mostly, though, because I mistakenly thought it was the OC venue famous for serving huge and pricey breakfasts and desserts, easily fit for two. But I’m pretty sure I’m wrong. Can you or anybody shed light on what this restaurant might have been? It would have been operating in the ’70s and ’80s, maybe not much later.
Dean,
Belisle’s Restaurant in Garden Grove on Chapman and Harbor is what you are thinking of. It was the famous Pink restaurant…now it has been replaced by boring chains Red Robin and Joe’s Crab Shack.
Sidney