The Indian pudding at the Shelter Harbor Inn, in Westerly, is a delight to both taste and sight.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo Sandor Bodo

If Aunt Carrie’s, the Point Judith clam shack, epitomizes a certain kind of South County restaurant — simple and informal, a place for folks who like their seafood fried and their prices low — then Westerly’s Shelter Harbor Inn offers a glimpse into how the other half dines.

Indoors, Aunt Carrie’s is blond-wood tables and boldly painted yellow and forest-green walls; Shelter Harbor is white linen tablecloths and country wallpaper where pale pink roses climb decorously across a cream background. Outdoors, Aunt Carrie’s is picnic tables by the parking lot; Shelter Harbor is white-painted woven-metal tables on a covered patio overlooking a bounteous flower garden and Adirondack chairs around a manicured croquet court.

But they have this in common: Both serve Indian pudding, that delectable combination of cornmeal, molasses and spices that is so quintessentially old-time New England.

After my column on Indian pudding and Aunt Carrie’s appeared last week, several readers urged me to check out Shelter Harbor’s rendition.

And so — hey, this is rough work, but somebody’s got to do it — I set out yesterday to do just that.

A HIGH, HAZY sun beat down as I climbed out of my car and looked around at the inn’s white walls and neat blue shutters. The original farmhouse, dating to the early 1800s, is the basis of the building, but it’s been added to many times over the years, even as it became an inn in 1911, a nursing home in the 1940s, and an inn again since 1950.

Inside, men in blue blazers or polo shirts sat at the tables; the women were just as formally informal. At the table next to me, a pair of elderly men argued about the bill for their foursome. One of them pulled out a thick roll of bills and settled the matter.

Lunch prices ranged from $10 for the quiche du jour — yesterday, it was vegetable — served with mixed greens to $21 for grilled filet mignon with black truffle butter and shallot mashed potatoes.

Lots of the options were tempting, but I was a man on a mission, and I knew I had to save room for dessert. So I picked the relatively low-cal options of the soup of the day, gazpacho, and a salad of mixed greens with Roquefort cheese and spiced pecans. And — no doubt to help me keep to my weight-control plan — the bread that came to the table wasn’t a large loaf like the endlessly refilled basket of cinnamon-raisin bread Aunt Carrie’s serves. Instead, there was one slice each of two kinds of bread, a hearty white whose crust was studded with sesame seeds and an excellent, moist carrot bread that tasted more like carrot cake.

Around me, patrons were served delicious-looking plates: crab-and-salmon cakes with mustard remoulade (the woman who ordered it ate every bite), a lobster-salad croissant (her skinny companion managed the lobster but left behind much of the croissant and most of the golden fries). And my food, when it came, was a summery treat — the spicy tomato-based gazpacho full of finely cut vegetables, and the salad with its spiced nuts and several ounces of the strong-flavored Roquefort.

And then the waiter asked about dessert.

AS HIGH-TONED as are Shelter Harbor’s entrees, the inn’s desserts are just as homey. Sure, there’s a chocolate raspberry torte, but the other choices would fit in on the menu of any diner: New York-style cheesecake, chocolate peanut-butter pie, strawberry shortcake and fruit crisp. And, of course, the iconic Indian pudding — the reason I was there.

I remembered that Elsie Foy, the owner of Aunt Carrie’s, had told me her servers had trouble describing the dish to customers. So I asked my waiter what this Indian pudding stuff was.

He didn’t hesitate. “It’s very rich,” he answered. “It’s made of molasses and corn meal. It’s very good.”

Straightforward and factual, with a just-heartfelt-enough plug at the end. I placed my order.

And in five minutes or so, it was on my table, sitting in a white ramekin on a small white plate — a sea of white, in fact, with a sprig of green mint offering a splash of color.

But where was the molasses-brown pudding?

Hiding under a large scoop of vanilla ice cream and a dollop of whipped cream nearly as big, it turned out.

IT WOULD TAKE a lot to mess up Indian pudding, and Shelter Harbor doesn’t. Though the ginger and cinnamon that make some versions taste almost like gingerbread or spice cake are applied with a miserly hand, if at all, the pudding is rich and warm, as promised. And, as always, the contrast of that heat with the cold toppings adds a dimension most desserts lack.

But as I dug through the ice cream to find the main attraction, the experience did make me pause. Like the sprig of mint, the surplus of toppings seemed to suggest that the chef didn’t trust this very basic dish, and had to overload on the extras.

Some things flourish with adornment. Mozart’s music. The ceiling at the Sistine Chapel. The Independent Man on the dome at the State House.

But sometimes simplicity is exactly what you want. A day at the beach doesn’t need much more than a swimsuit and a blanket to lie on (okay, and some sun block to protect your skin). You can leave the tux and evening gown in your closet for another, more appropriate time.

It’s tempting to take the perfect and try to make it better. But perfection is, you know, as good as it gets.

My vote is for the chef, and the person, who figures out that some things just can’t be improved.

arosenbe@projo.com