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Food fit to be fried at brewpub
| Thursday, Nov 20 2003 8:35 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Feb 10 2006 10:28 AM
Now that the fair has left town, I know what a lot of you are thinking. Where can you get a decent deep-fried Twinkie?
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Sure, you can buy them at Las Vegas casinos (downtown, not the allegedly classier strip) but this odd junk food delicacy is seldom found in a restaurant not run by someone who looks like they've had a parole officer at least once in the past decade. But now Lengthwise Brewing Company on Schirra Court has it on the dessert menu.
After almost a year in business the industrial-looking restaurant is continuing to evolve and weekends are truly hopping for Bakersfield's only brewpub. The food, which wasn't bad to start, is evolving in ways that make it a great, inexpensive casual dining option.
We'll get to that Twinkie. I wouldn't want to concentrate on that before I talk about the real food, unlike my waiter, who kept trying to bring the fried Twinkies with the ice cream because I made the stupid move of ordering and paying for it at the same time as my entrees. I had expected that the guy had been raised in one of those homes where you needed to eat the real food before the dessert.
Anyway, a first glance at the menu would have you thinking it was glorified bar food, which you actually order and pay for at the bar. It is brought to the table, because you are given a big plastic number as if it were a fast-food place.
You can get sandwiches like the chicken Caesar wrap ($5.95), which I liked because it had an ample amount of Romaine lettuce. The steak salad ($7.95) was another winner, a perfect choice for all those low-carb dieters who really shouldn't even be in a brewpub anyway, since these fresh-made pints ($3) will carb you up for a week.
The new item on the menu that is my favorite is the tequila chicken sausage sandwich ($8.50), prepared on focaccia bread with grilled onions, jack cheese and brown mustard on the side.
I must warn you that the side order of fire fries ($4.95) are so doused with a Tabasco-like sauce that they're nearly inedible unless your mouth is calloused. Oddly, they were hard to resist. Better to order the giant, fresh-battered onion rings.
Now, on to the Twinkies. You might think I'm stooping to a new low by ordering this. What kind of self-respecting dining critic would try to assess such dreck? But it was so lovingly described on the menu. There were four lightly battered sponge cakes, spokes on a wheel with a big scoop of quality vanilla ice cream in the center, presented with a maple and cinnamon syrup. The presentation was fabulous, what you suspect The Bistro would do with such a challenge.
I was at a table of skeptics, appalled at the idea of anyone eating such things. But they had to try it. And in the end, there was only one bite of Twinkie left, serving as the symbolic last piece of pizza that seemingly no one can eat without being impolite.
Outside of the Twinkie-pushing act by our waiter, service was great and the staff at Lengthwise is particularly friendly.
Lengthwise Brewing Company can be recommended for a fine dining experience.