Lamenting the lack of swell restaurants in the South End? You're not alone. But take heart and allow me to introduce you to the Tin Room Bar.

Established in the heart of Olde Burien late last year, the Tin Room takes its name from its former incarnation as the Hi-Line Tin Shop, established in 1930. It's brought to us courtesy of Milo Goodrich, who tends bar, and his business-partner Dan "the Sausageman" House — whose specialty food business is headquartered next door.

Their kitchen offers a mix of starters and salads, plus entrees that range from burgers ($7) and steak sandwiches ($12) to fussier fare like chicken Marsala ($12) and cedar-planked salmon ($18).

To venture into the Tin Room is to inhabit a latter-day Norman Rockwell illustration where eclectic crowds of friendly neighbors gather to lift a glass and a fork. It's where a pair of handsome hounds are tied to a post out front, a couple of TVs are tuned to the game, and two Mac and Jacks into an evening you realize there's no place else you'd rather be.

On my initial visit I snagged a table in plain view of the crowded bar where kindly bartenders call out greetings and smoking is verboten. I watched as the snug room filled to bursting, ordered a drink from a smiling waitress and quickly learned exactly what it was that makes the Tin Room the buzz of Burien.

It is not the filling fare. Nor even the cocktails, though they are delicious, and at $5 for a classic Manhattan or a fresh-squeezed lemon drop, a relative bargain. The secret to its success is the seductive draw of small-town camaraderie. At the Tin Room, everyone knows everyone, and the amount of back-slapping, cheek-kissing and table-hopping going on in here is enough to make an anonymous urban dweller weep.

One night I noticed that a couple of dollar bills had fallen to the floor under a recently vacated barstool. I stood to retrieve them — Whoa! a hundred and a twenty! — then asked the bartender if he knew the guy who'd been sitting there. "You mean Jim?" he said. I handed the bills over as he pointed to a pretty blonde at the table next to mine, saying, "That's his ex-wife."

Jim's ex-wife was drinking a cosmopolitan and sharing a rosy-centered New York steak sandwich with a friend when her wasband returned for his cash. Meanwhile, my pals and I shared a Plowman's Lunch ($9), whose star attractions were a hunk of "Dan the Sausageman's" summer sausage and a wee jar of his spunky mustard.

I later came to realize that Dan was the sweet-faced fellow lifting a pint at the bar: the one who turned to us as we left and asked how we'd liked our dinner. Had I known his affiliation then, I might have suggested he tell the cook to rethink the choice of bread served with that Plowman's Lunch: a dead-ringer for the cottony French rolls sold in plastic bags in the supermarket bread aisle.

That bread sandwiched Jim's ex-wife's steak, which is served, as is the worthy cheeseburger and a tender-breasted chicken sandwich ($9.50), with a terrific pile of crunchy, half-dollar-sized "home-fries." It doubles as "crostini" with an $11 fruit and cheese platter whose most distinctive cheese among the diced offerings was Colby-Jack. And it came grilled as garlic bread beside an enormous bowlful of pesto-powered clams ($13), inexplicably accompanied by drawn butter.

Do have a salad, available in entree-sizes or generous half-portions. My favorites among this long list include the "Lox and Lettuce" (colorful greens tossed with capers, onion and sweet balsamic vinaigrette, layered with cold-smoked salmon, $9/$5), and the "Tin House Salad" (whose mixed greens support a heaping helping of Dungeness crab, jumbo prawns and grilled asparagus, $14/$7.50).

Unless you're wealthy and dieting, why spend $13 on a prawn cocktail when two bucks more buys a filling plateful of "Swanny's Roquefort Prawns" enhancing rich, creamy angel hair pasta? Skip the salmon. One preparation ($18) is overly sweet, its berry beurre blanc better befitting a waffle. The other ($21) is overdressed — baked with crab, shrimp, sour cream dill sauce and cheddar cheese. Both, sampled weeks apart, came rife with pin-bones.

Your basic charbroiled New York strip comes in two sizes: "Ernie" (12-ounces/$16) and "Phyllis" (8-ounces/$12). These pay homage to the Tin Shop's longtime proprietor, Ernie Eder, whose workbenches have been refashioned as the Tin Room's tables, and to his wife, who, sadly, passed away in April. At its side is the house veggie — crisp fresh asparagus spears on my visits — and a baked potato wanting for more roasting time. I much preferred the pork tenderloin Marsala ($14), a special whose tenderly seared meat crowned a plateful of mushroom-sauced pasta.

What makes the Tin Room special? No, it's not the outsourced cheesecake, though you won't go wrong with a slice ($4.50). It's that sitting here in a noisy storefront, where friendship is only a handshake and a shared plate of fries away, it's easy to believe our world remains a warm and wonderful place.

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or taste@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/nancyleson.