RESTAURANT REVIEW:

Even though the Super Bowl is three days away, it’s still not too late to scout out a place to watch football’s biggest game.

One of the easiest places to recommend is Rudy’s Pub and Grill; but be forewarned, I am not the first, nor the last person to do so. For sports bars, the Super Bowl is like a restaurant’s New Year’s Eve.

If a crush of humanity is part of your gameplan, this would be one of the best places to be, but I would advise you also come here on a day that doesn’t stretch the room’s maximum occupant capacity.

Because while Rudy’s is classified as a sports bar, it is definitely not the stereotypical place to drink a beer, eat fried, fatty foods and crane your neck to get a glimpse of the game.

There are 32 plasma screen televisions in the facility that underwent a major renovation in 2005. A patio area was constructed, and it came complete with a 40-foot retractable roof. The three sides of windows in the patio area give the room a bright, roomy feel.

Farther into the facility the brick walls have sports memorabilia hanging on them. The room is more narrow than it is wide, and the two rows of tables lead up to one of two bars.

While the décor is serviceable, what really shines here is the food. The menu, both breakfast and lunch/dinner, have items that are extremely inventive and not typical of a sports bar.

Breakfast features items such as German apple pancakes and stuffed French toast. The German apple pancakes take 20 minutes to prepare, partly because the pancake is cooked both on a griddle and baked in an oven. The French toast has two large slices of white bread with cream cheese, blueberries and banana slices stuffed in them, dipped in egg batter and grilled.

Some of the standards are there for breakfast as well. There is a breakfast burrito with bacon, but chorizo can be substituted if preferred. There is also a varied selection of skillets and omelets.

The afternoon and dinner menu has some extremely unusual entrees on it, including a chicken saltimbocca sandwich, which has prosciutto wrapped around a chicken breast with sage, mozzarella cheese and roma tomatoes.

The crab, shrimp and scallops melt with Monterey jack cheese is also quite good.

Recently there were new additions to the menu, and some of the items are very intriguing. On this visit I had the adult macaroni and cheese. Instead of elbow macaroni, the cooks use radiatore pasta, which is radiator-shaped and works well with the cheese sauce. There are generous slices of tasty habanera chicken sausage and buffalo mozzarella cheese. Diced tomatoes round out the dish.

A Cuban sandwich also vied for my attention before I settled on the mac and cheese. Shaved ham, house roasted pork, dill pickles and Swiss cheese are on a French roll.

As good as the food is at Rudy’s, it is about to get better. Todd Carson, co-owner of the restaurant, was able to lure David Baumann away from Duke’s in Huntington Beach to be his new executive chef. He is already working on adding to a stellar menu that should be unveiled by the end of February.

“We are really fortunate to have him,” Carson said. “He has already started to work on the menu, coming by with things to sample like steak skewers with wasabi cream cheese.”

That was Carson’s whole goal when he became a partner about seven years ago.

“It was a nice place to watch a game, but that was about it,” Carson said. “We wanted something better than just pub food, but still wanted to keep it in the $10 to $15 range.”

Carson has succeeded and while you may not get a seat on Super Bowl Sunday, this is a place to come to whether you like sports or not.

JOHN REGER is the Pilot’s restaurant critic. His reviews run Thursdays.