Pete Tittl
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PETE TITTL'S SIDE DISHES: Winter specials worth the visit, if you're quick
I know I've praised the happy-hour specials and food at Tahoe Joe's in the past, but KC Steakhouse (2515 F St.) is giving the southwest restaurant a run for its money with a menu of winter early bird specials, available Monday through Saturday 4:30 to 6 p.m. through the end of this month. For $13.50, you can choose from top sirloin, filet, lemon chicken breast with mushroom sauce, scampi, blackened chicken with beurre blanc sauce, blackened scallops on a bed of spinach fettuccine alfredo or the homemade fried chicken. We visited and sampled the chicken and the filet, and both were incredible values. The chicken was the best I've had since The Pantry closed: two chicken breasts with ribs, a fierce batter shell, protecting chicken meat that was still moist. My companion's 6-ounce filet was tender and flavorful, definitely prime beef. These meals include the beans, salsa, bread, soup or salad and either garlic mashed potatoes or cowboy potatoes. I'd put it right up there with that Uricchio's Monday night special ($15.99; by the way, Uricchio's, which offers the deal only occasionally, will discontinue it after tomorrow. Get in quick.).
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PETE TITTL: Bacon aside, Noriega a top breakfast stop
BY PETE TITTL
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PETE TITTL: Give BAM Deli a test drive for some Greek flair
Contributing columnist
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PETE TITTL: Mexican fare that feels just like home
When you think of Mexican restaurants, you seldom think of great wine lists. In fact, other than Red Pepper in the northeast, I'm hard pressed to remember a local Mexican restaurant that puts much thought at all into their wine offerings.
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PETE TITTL: Leave Sugar Twist unsatisfied? Fat chance
Today's column comes at a most inopportune time. I know it's January. I know that the No. 1 New Year's resolution made by most Americans is to lose weight. But when a place like Sugar Twist opens, well, to heck with the calendar.
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Reworking it to make it work at Stix
If there's one local restaurant niche that has grown ultra competitive in recent years, it's sushi. It takes the courage of a samurai warrior to open and operate one of those restaurants in Bakersfield, no matter how trendy the food has become in recent years.
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Tasty fare despite odd location
Ambience is too often ignored in new restaurant planning, but not at Toro Sushi. This tiny sliver of a restaurant on Coffee Road between Rosedale Highway and Hageman Road has a captivating, relaxing mood if you can overlook a somewhat clumsy entrance area (the understaffed restaurant seldom has a hostess there to greet you, and there's no sign present telling you whether to wait or seat yourself).
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PETE TITTL: If they can take a risk, how about you?
I've always been the biggest cheerleader for culinary diversity in Bakersfield, and I take it hard when those bold trailblazers who fight to offer us something more than meat and potatoes fail. A couple of years ago a Chester Avenue Cuban food buffet opened with an enthusiastic owner, but within months he had to put aside his bid for diverse cuisine and revert to burritos and tacos. Too many people didn't want something different.
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PETE TITTL: An experience to savor at Valentien
There will always be those who insist Bakersfield is a culinary backwater, with no adequate restaurants despite my many years of laboring to convince them otherwise. If I was limited to just one restaurant to make a case that we are not a wasteland, I would send them to Valentien Restaurant & Wine Bar.
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PETE TITTL: All set for the big game at McMurphy's Irish Pub
The NFL is a big boost to the restaurant/bar business. Sure, you can get "NFL Sunday Ticket" if you have DirecTV, but nothing beats the Sunday ritual of cheering for your favorite overpaid millionaires in the presence of fellow jersey-wearing fans.
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PETE TITTL: Want great food? Go north to Oildale
You do not need to leave Oildale to get a great meal. But who knew that the cuisine was good enough to make the north-of-the-river burg a destination for food lovers? Anyone who has ever eaten at the Highland Cafe, that's who.
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PETE TITTL: Chicken, pancakes fill culinary gap, and our stomachs
I've wondered for a while why, in a city with as many churches as Bakersfield has, no restaurant offers gospel music. If you go out of town to any of the House of Blues restaurants they'll usually put it on the bill on a Sunday, as kind of a church service for the unchurched, or maybe just an extended worship time.
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PETE TITTL: Macaroni Grill is light and just right
One national news story I caught recently highlighted the economic troubles of midpriced restaurant chains like Applebee's and Chili's. Seems like they're losing a lot of business in this economic downtown to restaurants like Chipotle Mexican Grill.
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PETE TITTL: Top fried chicken in town? We may have a winner
Timing and location are everything in the restaurant business. Many years ago the owners of Linda's Place opened the first chicken and waffles restaurant in Bakersfield, on Brundage Lane east of Oak Street. Though fried chicken and waffles are a popular and commonplace restaurant concept in Los Angeles, thanks to the famous Roscoe's restaurants, it just didn't take hold here despite some positive press from me.
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DINING OUT: Taste has checked out of hotel
Some of you may remember what a big splash the Red Lion made when it opened its hotel and restaurant complex on Rosedale Highway back in the '80s. The chain made a particular point of offering restaurants good enough to compete with the best in town. It was a corporate philosophy, and sure enough, both the formal dining room and the coffee shop were quite amazing. In those days, the formal dining room could compete with the big boys in town: Patrick's, The Blue Note and The Bistro, as ¡well as Lemucchi's Tam O'Shanter. The coffee shop, using the same kitchen, was an exceptional value. The Sunday brunch at one time was the best in town.
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DINING OUT: Save our restaurant, readers plead
Occasionally I get called in like a restaurant superhero in the hopes that a favorable review by me could save someone's favorite restaurant. Unfortunately I don't get to wear tights and a cape, although I do apologize for planting that image in your brain over breakfast.
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PETE TITTL: Tiny cafe is home-cooked delight
I struggle to keep up with every promising little restaurant out there, and that's why I appreciate readers who send me suggestions. David Irvine dropped me a note about a small Baker Street cafe he happened upon while getting his tires changed. Apparently he'd been on a search for the best huevos rancheros in town.
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PETE TITTL: Round Table a slice of heaven
The chain vs. independent competition in the restaurant business is bad enough, but it's kicked up a notch when it comes to pizza parlors. The independents mostly get steamrolled by the huge TV ad budgets of the chains. In recent years, Bakersfield has lost one of its small chains, Papa O's.
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PETE TITTL: A little less romantic, but still a meal to love
The Country Rose Café on H Street once made my list of most romantic restaurants in town, back in the days when it was serving dinner. Not only were the entrees reasonably priced (which often amplifies the romantic mood of the male partner, especially if he's cheap), but it has such an intimate feel to the well-decorated tiny rooms that you're transported, momentarily, to a whole other place -- probably one with better furniture.
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PETE TITTL: Japanese in a hurry still worthwhile
The owners of Tokyo Garden and Miyoshi have opened a third restaurant in town at The Marketplace, called merely Miyosh. If they kept expanding and dropped a letter every time, eventually they'd open a place called M.
