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PETE TITTL: Chicken, pancakes fill culinary gap, and our stomachs

BY PETE TITTL Contributing columnist
pftittl@gmail.com | Sunday, Oct 02 2011 12:00 AM

Last Updated Sunday, Oct 02 2011 12:00 AM

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.

Into the void comes Chicken & Cakes, a new restaurant on Stine Road that's opened up in a small space that has been a Great Wraps and a Too Fat Sandwich shop in the past. It's still a work in progress; when we visited they were still finishing up the adjoining room where the stage and tables would presumably be for the music shows. Besides gospel, a flier at the counter says live jazz and R&B will be coming on Friday and Saturday nights. I gotta say: The more live music outlets in town the better. Keep musicians of all types employed. (Though Chicken & Cakes doesn't offer beer and wine, so everyone's gonna have to enjoy their tunes in a completely sober state. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Though there was no live entertainment when we visited on a Saturday afternoon for lunch, there was R&B music playing on a flat screen.

The menu is pretty limited right now, offering one meat and a small side for $5. Meat choices are a sausage patty, two pieces of bacon or two whole wings (fried plain or with honey barbecue sauce). Sides include greens, baked beans, green salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, macaroni and cheese, French fries, two eggs, a Belgian waffle or two pancakes. If two wings isn't your idea of an adequate portion of protein, you can pay $1.50 for each additional piece of meat or $2.50 for each additional side.

The pancakes and waffles come in six flavors: strawberry, blueberry, chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon and spice. On the specials board they had a hot link combo ($6.50) and a rib and hot link plate ($11.75), as well as a burger combo ($7.50).

We sampled a variety of foods, including the chicken wings (very dark and crispy, with what looked like Cajun spices as a seasoning agent in the flour on the batter). The baked beans were pretty sweet, as if they had a healthy splash of molasses in the mix.

I had to get the blueberry waffle, and though it came with syrup, it didn't need more sugar to make it flavorful. What probably helped was the melted butter drizzled in the center. I've got to go back and get the one with chocolate batter -- I'll bet that's a winner.

My companion's green salad was pretty substantial: a plate of good greens, shredded cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes and chopped purple onion.

Desserts are a big hit. On the day we visited the cobbler was already gone and the vanilla frosted cake was all that was left. Banana pudding is available sometimes, the menu noted.

Service was OK. You order at a counter and they bring it to the table after a reasonable period of time. A lot of the casual/fast food elements are still there, such as the fountain where you can refill your sodas near the cash register.