SALUTE TO CALIFORNIA AT BEAR FLAG

I consider it palaver when someone says “California cuisine.” Goat cheese and kiwi have been Cucamonga-ed and Beautiful Downtown Burbank-ed to death. Do bring on the mesquite-grilled protein and kicky salads, but leave off all the talk. To me, a real California cuisine would mean imaginative restaurants off each and every exit ramp and not merely in selective urban pleasure domes.

So my cranky self was pleasantly surprised to discover the Bear Flag Cafe in Riverside en route to points further east. As the travel commission has been proclaiming, there are many Californias in this state and my companions and I found a nice one in a low-slung shopping mall.

Although we’d been tipped off by friends, the short drive from the freeway (it’s not far from the Pennsylvania Avenue exit on Highway 60) still had the feel of serendipity. Sudden tourists, we took in the camel-humped hillocks, the University of California’s experimental orange grove, the Fire Test Lab and the Canyon Crest Shopping Plaza with acres of red-tiled roofs.

The Bear Flag looks like a Swiss travel-poster inn with its shirred white curtains, pretty flower boxes and rustic wood facade. Only the flag is Californian (bear flag, get it?) and not from some alpine canton. Inside, the deep mauve and forest-green dining room casts a cool spell.

While the menu discreetly claims to serve the buzz-word cuisine, we were interested in its provenance: The bill of fare was designed by Robert del Grande, the cheeky young chef of the au courant Houston restaurant Cafe Annie. (He’s the son-in-law of the Bear Flag proprietors.)

So, yes, if Roland Barthes were still around, he might do a semiotics of California Cuisine right there in Riverside: Tomatillo salsa, walnut oil, sun-dried tomatoes and mesquite grilling would surely qualify the B.F.C. But post-Barthes, let’s eat.

I liked the warm leek salad with baked yams, artichoke hearts and cilantro vinaigrette. With its grilled leek logs and amber yam disks, it looked like a children’s game designed by Paul Klee--altogether merry and odd. The spinach and smoked slab bacon salad with hefty garlic croutons was pleasing as well, but caution: It is huge and better shared by two.

The succulent, mesquite-grilled shrimp came with a good straight-backed salsa while mushrooms sauteed in walnut oil with fresh thyme were overcooked. A warm semolina cake--crisp, brown, surrounded by fine red peppers--was cloaked in both melted and grated cheese like an old-fashioned devil’s food snow ball; its crunchy, oozy texture was marred somewhat by too much oil on the plate.

The pasta is all homemade. We had a nifty fettucine glossed with Parmesan, cream and tossed with shards of lusty shrimp.

Service was continually lovely; We enjoyed the pace of our meal.

A main course of three plump-looking (but actually rather lean), fennel-suffused pork sausages was lovingly homemade and served with a sunshine yellow corn cake, a swirling array of crisp red and white cabbage and a fresh handful of California crops. The vegetables at Bear Flag were all unusually perky, painterly and flash-sauteed. Corn cakes are high on my list of favorite foods, providing a gorgeous, amber-colored foil to the sausage, but why did these taste so bland?

The mesquite-grill lovers in our group were as happy as clams. Can a leg of lamb laced with peanut and olive oils, lots of garlic and fresh rosemary be haunting? This was. It simply needed to be served with a sharper knife. Fresh sea bass married beautifully with a thin veil of mustard cream.

Don’t drive off without having dessert. Everything is made on the premises. Our party decided it was a tossup between the extravagant chocolate walnut pie and the extraordinary amaretto custard-topped chocolate butter torte, baroque and subtle at the same time. Bear Flag also has a sturdy wine list and a good selection of varietal wines by the glass. (There are even two Riverside vineyard wines!)

If you happen to think that Hadley’s is the only place to stop between Palm Springs and L.A., you might just take the south fork and stop off for an easygoing buzz-word meal.

Bear Flag Cafe, 5225 Canyon Crest Drive, Building Nine, Riverside. (714) 369-FLAG. Open Monday-Friday for lunch; Monday-Saturday for dinner. Closed Sundays (except Mother’s Day, when the restaurant will be open 5-9 p.m.) Full bar. Parking in lot. All major credit cards. Dinner for two, (food only) $30-$50.