Red Tracton’s in Solana Beach : A Menu Right Out of the ‘40s Supper Club Era

It’s rather surprising these days to stumble across a newly opened restaurant that, in this land of nonfat milk and artificial sweeteners, can only be termed a museum piece.

Red Tracton’s, which opened this summer in a choice location across Via de la Valle from the Del Mar Race Track, is a repository of the foods this country once consumed with abandoned and unapologetic gusto. The menu and mood recall so strongly those of 1940s supper clubs and steakhouses that one looks up in vain for a sight of Lauren Bacall stepping forward to growl out one of her throaty, lovelorn complaints.

In this age of mollycoddled infant vegetables, parsimoniously portioned salads and other fussy trademarks of contemporary feeding, Tracton’s takes a revisionist view of food and serves plenty of it. There’s nothing fancy or foreign about its offerings. But the fact that the restaurant utilizes only first-rate ingredients and treats them simply and well is enough.

A refrigerated case inside the entrance proudly bares Tracton’s culinary soul. It displays boastful examples of American bounty, such as beautifully marbled, cube-shaped filet steaks that weigh upwards of 1 pound, iced platters of king crab legs and giant prawns, and slabs of swordfish so large that they hint at the specimen caught by Hemingway’s Old Man.

This new restaurant is an import of sorts from Los Angeles, where restaurateur Red Tracton has operated steakhouses since 1948. The last of these, in Encino, was sold not long before the move south to Solana Beach, and Tracton (who is on the premises most of the time and can be found in the bar Monday nights, watching televised football) brought some of his longtime staff with him. Among these are waitresses of the sort of which only a limited number were made before the mold was broken, and who thus are in woefully short supply today; they take care of their customers efficiently and cheerfully without intruding on the party.

It bears repeating that portions are enormous, quite in the style of Remington’s and of several revered steakhouses back East, such as the Palm in New York. The prices keep pace with the portions, and, given the quality, are generally acceptable, although they are in a few cases astonishing: Jumbo prawns or king crab legs, served iced as an appetizer, run $17.95. All this presumably goes hand in hand with the race-track milieu, and with the theory that high rollers like to live high when Lady Luck is kind. But it must be admitted that times have changed, and not everyone wants nearly so much to eat, and further, that the track season runs but briefly, from late July to mid-September.

Most of these considerations fall aside when the waitress brings the first course. Tracton’s harks back to the era when California was the salad capital of the United States and, indeed, almost thought of itself as the guardian of this particular category of food. The menu thus emphasizes salads, all a la carte and all tossed in the rough-and-tumble steakhouse tradition. Both the chilled spinach salad and the house salad “exceptionale” can be ordered for one or two, and are in either case outsized. Either will be tossed at the table with one of the homemade dressings, of which the green goddess, a real California classic, is Tracton’s pride. A third salad with genuine steakhouse flair combines sliced beefsteak tomatoes with anchovy filets, pimentos and onion.

The salad “exceptionale” does not really seem all that exceptional in this age of lavishly garnished greenery, but it is a generous jumble of mixed crisp greens, mushrooms and fresh croutons. One has to have an immense fondness for anchovies to enjoy the green goddess dressing, but this avocado-based concoction is wonderfully rich, and it reminds us how well restaurant-goers dined before the advent of commercial foods and concerns about cholesterol.

Starter choices also include several soups, Cajun chicken wings (in parentheses, the menu more accurately calls these “Buffalo hots,” and they in any case are the single bow to contemporary food crazes), stuffed potato skins and large mushroom caps stuffed with crab meat. The Boston-style clam chowder bisque, as the menu somewhat redundantly styles it, is a stellar sort of chowder, lightly bodied, flavorful and packed with bits of clam and salt pork.

The ne plus ultra among appetizers, however, also is offered as a vegetable side dish, and should be found suitable at just about any juncture in the meal. This is a platter of wispy, deep-fried onion rings, which create a sort of addiction after the first few bites that lasts until the platter is empty (an order will serve two generously or four sufficiently).

With the exception of a couple of chicken breast dishes (teriyaki, piccata, alla Marsala) that seem rather distant from Tracton’s main thrust, the entrees are simple, sauce-less and savory. The restaurant simply has a cook who understands meat.

The headlined specialty is the prime rib, a travesty at most places these days but a buttery triumph here. It arrived with the usual cup of juice, but this time the cup contains genuine roasting juices instead of water flavored with powdered bouillon. There is a choice between a full-bone cut of about 20 ounces, priced at $19.95, or a half-cut at $2 less, and the smaller portion seemed more than large enough for most appetites.

The king of meats would seem to be the prime filet mignon cut from corn-fattened Eastern beef. This was a remarkable steak, cut to about the size of a squared-off cantaloupe and broiled as expertly as could be hoped. It, too, had a buttery tenderness and a full, rich flavor; it was quite a picture-perfect steak, in fact. Because the remains translated nicely into three days’ worth of sandwiches, diners who do not wish so much meat might consider sharing a single specimen.

Tracton’s also serves an excellent, full rack of cornfed baby pork ribs, cooked in a time-honored manner of which many restaurants and even rib-fanciers are ignorant. These are precooked to tenderize the meat and render much of the excess fat, then placed on the grill just long enough to give them an excellent crust and a superbly tender texture.

Among the seafoods, the menu offers halibut and swordfish steaks, poached or grilled salmon, broiled king crab legs and what it bills, most truthfully, as “gigantic” Australian lobster tails; these are displayed at the entrance and look to weigh at least 2 pounds. It also lists large Eastern scallops, sauteed or gently fried (the fried version proved quite nice) and served with a good mustard sauce.

Dinners include corn on the cob or a giant baked potato custom-stuffed at the table with the usual fixings, but those who have never had really cottage-fried potatoes, a one-time fixture at fancy restaurants and hash houses alike, might consider splurging on an order. They cost $6.95, but will serve four; they are expensive because they must be done to order and require considerable attention. Thinly sliced potatoes are placed in concentric rings in a heavily greased cast iron skillet, browned on one side, flipped and browned on the second side. The result is a crisp, golden cake with a creamy center.

Desserts are catered, stay mostly in the cheesecake family, and should be unthinkable after all the food this restaurant serves.

RED TRACTON’S

550 Via de la Valle, Solana Beach

755-6600

Dinner served nightly.

Credit cards accepted.

Dinner for two, with a glass of wine each, tax and tip, $50 to $90.