DINO'S RESTAURANT

Dino's Restaurant is celebrating 31 years in business this year, and that's quite an accomplishment for any eatery these days. But would you believe it took a dining-out disaster to get us here for the first - but definitely not last - time?

On a cool but beautiful Saturday afternoon in mid-September, our son Scott and his wife Lilla invited my husband Jack and me to join them at at a local winery near Berlin Center, which was hosting a clambake catered by a local restaurant. The occasion was to celebrate the birthday of our daughter-in-law's brother, who was visiting from London. Also along for the fun was their mother, Sheila, who's been living in South Africa but is here now. Told to arrive about an hour prior to our reserved time to get a good seat for the clambake, we cheerfully obeyed - and proceeded to drop more than $100 on tasting trays, glasses and pitchers of wine and bottles to take home as we waited for our appointed serving time.

To our dismay, the "reserved" time turned into "just 15 more minutes," then 15 more, and then another 15. The winery folks blamed the caterer, and the caterer blamed an equipment malfunction. The bottom line is that nearly an hour after the time we were to eat, we were so frustrated (not to mention starving since none of us had eaten lunch to save up for the big dinner) that we demanded a refund ($28 times six, by the way) and left.

Long story short, we still had our hunger to deal with and a birthday to finish celebrating. But since we live about an hour away from our son - us to the east and he to the west - we wanted to find someplace in the middle so neither of us had to backtrack very far. But where?

Suddenly, Jack remembered Dino's Restaurant in North Jackson at the corner of Mahoning Avenue and State Route 45. As soon as he mentioned it, I recalled that a friend -- I believe it was Mike Costarella, who, among other things, hosts "Another Valley View" on AM 1540 WYCL each week -- had recommended it to me. So, Dino's it was.

Admittedly, we had a few doubts. First, it's located in a small plaza, certainly isn't "fancy" and we figured we wouldn't be able to get a beer to wash down our food even if it was good. Well, I'm here to tell you, we were dead wrong. No, it's not fancy; but alcohol is served here, and the food -- well, let's just say it was so good that Jack and I returned for lunch the very next day (more on that later, of course)!

We arrived about a quarter to six on a Saturday night, and despite a decent crowd, we were seated immediately at a large round table. It took a while to settle on what we wanted to eat since the menu is fairly extensive - and our choices were all over the map. The first thing I noticed is that they have pierogies, both batter-fried as an appetizer and "regular" with butter and onions. Our son Scott ordered the fried version as his meal, and he definitely wasn't disappointed (quite a nice feeling after our clambake fiasco, I hasten to add).

Jack zeroed in on linguine with clam sauce ($7.99), ordering it with red sauce instead of white. As it turned out, he got the white sauce by accident, but he said it was absolutely delicious and, instead of complaining, downed the whole thing while vowing to try the white next time. Lilla's brother Iain chose the veal parmesan, her mother picked the seafood trio appetizer of shrimp, clams and a crabcake ($6.99) while my choice was baked haddock ($8.49). For my sides, I paid a bit extra to have wedding soup and pierogies (the ones with butter and onions).

The fish turned out to be one of the tastiest portions I've had inland, and both the soup and pierogies were delicious as well. Admittedly I was too busy chatting with everyone that I didn't do a lot of writing, including getting prices on several of the items -- but the fact that most of the chatting came to an abrupt halt when the food arrived and didn't start up again till dessert is a good indication that everyone was quite satisfied.

Speaking of dessert, Wow! says it best. Most of us were too full to even think about a slice of pie, an apple dumpling or even a sundae, but then we spotted the stuffed elephant ear ($4.99), filled with vanilla ice cream and either apples or cherries (our choice) and topped with whipped cream. We ordered just one with four spoons, and there was plenty to go around. The elephant ear was huge -- and delectably warm -- and the ice cream, cherries and whipped cream sort of melted into it (melting with it all the calories, of course). Oh my!

A couple of us had beer or wine and the rest soft drinks, but perhaps the biggest and best surprise came at the end of the meal: The total bill for the six of us was just over $77 -- quite a noticeable difference from the $168 we'd have paid for the clambake, and everything was wonderfully tasty and delivered as promised.

The next day, Jack and I had hoped to stop at White House Fruit Farm near Canfield for the annual fall craft fair. But when we discovered the traffic was creeping along just to get to the entrance and the parking lots looked to be overflowing, we kept right on going. It would have been fun, but fighting big crowds just isn't something we have any interest in doing these days. We headed down a bit to Salem, and after cruising through the downtown and a few of that city's beautiful streets, we found ourselves back on State Route 45 to head home again.

And as luck would have it, it was somewhere around lunch time. Since we were on the right road, it took Jack about two minutes to come up with the possibility of stopping at Dino's for lunch -- and about two seconds more for me to say that's a great idea! This time, we agreed, we'll try a few new things.

We also looked around a bit more; this isn't a really large place, but there are plenty of large and small tables and booths along the walls. The decor is mostly wood, with Italian-style wall hangings in recessed areas. There's a banquet room to accommodate larger crowds as well and a small outdoor patio when the weather is cooperative. Specials are available each day, and I was tempted by several varieties of fried chicken (three pieces with a side of slaw is just $5.99). For future reference, we also noted that domestic beers are $1 on Wednesdays.

The Sunday entrees included prime rib for $12.99, but I wasn't quite that hungry. Instead, I opted for cavatelli chicken and greens with garlic broccolini sauce for $10.99. Jack had a tough time choosing as well, but he finally settled on pot roast with mashed potatoes, gravy and slaw for $7.99.

For starters, our server brought a basket of four very large (and still warm) rolls with my salad and Jack's slaw. Better still, the rolls were accompanied by plenty of butter pats. One of my big pet peeves is that most restaurants aren't stingy with the bread and rolls, but they really skimp on the butter and/or margarine. Admittedly, I tend to use more than many people do, but one or two of those tiny packets don't even begin to cover half a dozen pieces of bread and it's not always easy to catch a server's attention when I want more.

My chicken dish was served in a large oval bowl, and the sauce tasted fabulous. The grilled chicken pieces perhaps could have been more tender - pieces that small tend to cook up fast and get tough even faster. But the flavor was wonderful -- absolutely loved the homemade greens -- and I had plenty left to take home.

No such luck for Jack, since he scarfed down every single bite of what he called delicious pot roast (I sampled a bit of the gravy and agree with his assessment). Once again, we left satisfied -- proving that our initial experience was no fluke. Already, we've added Dino's to our list of places we love and will return to any time we're in the neighborhood (ah, I'll rephrase that: It's one we're willing to go out of our way to visit)!

If you go:

Dino's Restaurant

9245 Mahoning Ave.

North Jackson, Ohio

(330) 538-2263

Open Monday through Saturday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.