Roggie's

But if Cleveland Circle's food scene is problematic, its nightlife has long been genuinely embarrassing. You'd think that with all those BC kids just a couple of Green Line stops away . . . but no, the only bars within walking distance were the sterile Cityside and the genuinely worrisome Mary Ann's, a watering hole that still clings to the glorious moment in the mid '80s, when it was deemed "Worst Bar in Boston."

So Roggie's Brew and Grille was on to something when it broke onto the Cleveland Circle scene last April. The place started slowly, but a recent Wednesday-night visit found a nearly full house, and on weekends the place is SRO until well past the point when all those BCers should be trundled off to bed to let us working stiffs get plowed in peace.

So now the question: does Roggie's single-handedly save dining and nightlife in Cleveland Circle?

Of course not. What we've got here is a comfy bar that's a really decent place to hang out if you know what to avoid on the 65-item menu.

One nice surprise is that there's actual atmosphere: sponged copper-colored walls, a skewed half-timber motif, and wiry light fixtures that look like they're erupting from the set of 12 Monkeys. Two recessed TVs show sports among the soccer paraphernalia hanging on the back wall.

The pride of Roggie's is also against the back wall: a dense array of taps, dispensing 20 beers, one cider, and Bud Light. We've got a junior Sunset Grill in the making here, with a spot-on selection of local brews -- Boston Burton Ale, Tremont Ale, Harpoon IPA -- and some terrific not-so-local ones. In a neat twist, Roggie's has contracted with North Shore micromeisters Ipswich Brewing Co. to brew the two house beers: Barracuda (bearing a distinct resemblance to Ipswich light ale) and Cleveland Circle Dark (ditto Ipswich brown). If you don't like beer, there's a short wine list, or you can do what my girlfriend did and order a shandy -- half beer, half Sprite -- made with the Oregon Raspberry Wheat. Tastes just like soda pop, only it gets you nice.

Musing wetly on the American brewing renaissance, we started with the raw bar. Oysters are $6 a half-dozen, but a better deal is on littleneck clams, which sell for $6.25 the dozen and have a great, meaty, salt-pond taste that goes really well with Anchor Steam, or anything on the ale or porter end of the spectrum.

Another credible starter is the nonsensically named "Gringo Grille Mushrooms" ($6), a huge pile (a theme here) of shiitake mushrooms in a ginger-sesame marinade, served over shredded iceberg lettuce. If the mushrooms were a bit floppy by the time they reached the table, at least they were a fine idea. And the big bowl of beer mussels ($6) wasn't bad, although it's worth eschewing the beer broth provided in favor of the dish of clarified butter. But frankly, I don't know what we were thinking when we scarfed down Roggie's Sampler One ($7), an out-of-the-box fryfest of mozzarella sticks, onion rings, and popcorn shrimp. It's the sort of stuff that tastes great at 1 a.m., but we still had appetites to maintain.

Our appetites weren't big enough to handle most of the entrees. Take the steak-tip sandwich ($6). No, really, take it, because I sure can't finish the thing, even though it was pretty good -- a huge pile of beef-tip chunks, rare in the middle, way more than could fit on the roll. And that plate was dwarfed by a mound of chicken and beef called the half-and-half fajita ($14), which sizzled all night near its accompanying plates of tortillas, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, and grated cheese. We hesitated to think what the "double chicken fajitas" might look like, but maybe they're a cousin to the chicken quesadilla ($6). The quesadilla concept somehow got lost in the process of stuffing a tortilla (one big fucking tortilla, might I add) with all the chicken, cheese, onions, and peppers the cook could find, rolling the thing up, cutting it in two, and delivering it to the very surprised young woman across from me. The quesadilla was actually pretty satisfying, if not too Mexican -- the sort of thing you might make at home if you kept that much food on hand.

For those of us with normal appetites, the best bet is fish. I had a grilled salmon fillet ($10) that was awfully good: blackened on the outside, still moist inside. It came with the same pile of soft, generic rice pilaf that accompanied all the fish entrees. The special called the "grilled trio" we liked as well: salmon, shrimp, and scallops, all given the same blackening treatment and heaped on a plate for $10. Rumor has it the Greek-style fish special is worth ordering when it's available. And the veggies with the fish dishes -- yellow squash, carrots, snow peas -- were crisp and flavorful, enlivened by pepper and garlic.

I took a flier on a pasta special ($11) and wished I hadn't; it was Mediterranean in theme, but the feta cheese was the only thing in the huge beige mélange you could taste. The Med was better represented by the souvlaki ($8): grilled chicken on rice in the center, vegetables on either side, and a tomato-onion salsa along the top.

We were pleased with the service, and not just because our waitress could recite the entire beer list in alphabetical order. She was practically cheery when we sent back our caesar salad (profuse, overdressed, $5) for the anchovies we'd requested.

Roggie's isn't going to save the world, but it's doing fine things for Cleveland Circle. The backwards-baseball-hat quotient is surprisingly low for the neighborhood, the music is a funky mix (Parliament, Alanis), and if you confine yourself to beer and seafood you can eat a whole meal without realizing that apparently nobody within half a mile knows how to cook pasta.