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PETE TITTL: Ah, getting away to ... Riverlakes

BY PETE TITTL, Contributing columniste-mail:
ptittl@bakersfield.com | Friday, Aug 06 2010 03:02 PM

Last Updated Friday, Aug 06 2010 03:02 PM

With the press of everyday life, sometimes a real vacation just doesn't happen. There are, however, restaurants that can so lift you out of your ordinary life that they can have the same soul-restoring power.

Strong words, but that's the impression we had after a visit to the café at The Links at Riverlakes Ranch, a small bar/restaurant at a public golf course in the Rosedale area that is a low-profile gem. My companion and I visited on one of those moderate-temperature July days and asked to dine on the patio outside.

It was warm but not oppressively hot, we could hear the water from the streams in the background, men cutting the grass, others golfing. The view of the course is magnificent, so green and pleasant that they feature it on the website.

I'd reviewed the place a few years back but reader Betty Hylton wrote to suggest a return. "I have lunch there almost once a week and they let our group stay and play bridge during the afternoon. I have also had breakfast there a few times. I find all the food to be excellent.

I am always amazed that people in our area don't know they have a restaurant and that it is open to the public. The wait-staff are friendly and the service great. The chef and his crew are top rate." She went on to say the Friday fish and chips is worth a visit.

We visited at lunch, and I was surprised at how extensive the menu is.

I ordered one of the new items, the tri-tip pepper jack sandwich ($11.95), while my companion selected the smoked potsticker salad ($13.95).

The salad's name confused us. "Smoked potstickers?" Is that like meat or cheese? I've seen cooks on the Food Channel use smoked chicken or duck in potstickers, so maybe the word identifying the filling got left out on the menu. The salad itself was an alluring combination of baby greens, black sesame seeds, a peanut-based dressing, mandarin oranges and finely chopped bits of purple onion, tomato and bell peppers.

We would have loved it unreservedly, but the lettuce got a bit soggy as the salad was consumed due to all the peanut sauce on the five pot stickers.

(My companion had wisely asked for the sesame dressing "on the side," something we find more and more necessary given the tendencies of too many kitchens to drown vegetables and meat in liquid.)

My sandwich fared much better, with its thinly sliced strips of tri-tip that had been warmed up on the grill, lots of melted pepper jack cheese on soft, toasted ciabatta bread. I would order that again and again.

The rest of the lunch menu features a lot of big salads, including an old-fashioned Cobb and a grilled chicken spinach salad. Tuesdays and Thursdays are taco nights with $5 for all you can eat (5-7 p.m. Tuesdays, 6-8 p.m. Thursdays) and discount margaritas.