San Diego Spotlight : A Satisfying Repast During Backcountry Trip to Julian

To the degree that modern communications have made the planet seem a “global village,” it remains amazing how even a short drive (in the right direction) can take us to a noticeably different world.

Anyone who makes the 60-mile trek to Julian only occasionally--say, every other fall--may remark every time the suddenness with which San Diego and its suburbs dissolve into the countryside. Immediately past Lakeside the scene grows rustic, to be interrupted by Ramona before deep country fully takes over the landscape. Julian, while itself an urban speck among the wooded mountainsides, always arrives abruptly at the end of a gratifying curve, and after a few quaint blocks again fades into the trees.

As the Big Apple of the San Diego County outback, Julian draws many of its visitors with the scent of apples: on the tree, piled into bushel baskets, baked into pies or pressed into cider. But because most urban day trekkers do not live by pie alone, the town offers a fair number of cafes and restaurants, all of them quite casual and most rather basic and old-fashioned in their approach to cooking. This is not the place to send the nose scurrying around corners to sniff out high gastronomy or trends, nor need it be, because the effect of the air upon the appetite usually induces a hunger for meat and potatoes.

At the relatively formal end of the scale, the Julian Grille offers a straightforward menu of meats and seafood. The restaurant takes its own approach to many items--and, frankly, the results on occasion seem a little amateurish--but such digressions at least show that the Grille prepares these dishes freshly rather than relying on the packaged products that many outlying eateries find so seductively convenient.

The setting, on the edge of the few blocks of commercial development that constitute downtown, is almost everything that one wants in Julian. Formerly a smallish but rambling house, the Grille seats diners in three cozy rooms at the front of the structure and devotes the rear to the kitchen, which can be glimpsed through a service window in the entry hall. Not at all a mountain cabin, which, along with the absence of a fireplace, may disappoint some visitors, the restaurant is more like the sort of modest houses built decades ago in just about every part of the country where it snows. The most charming place to sit may be the enclosed porch, where the cold air that seeps under the windows may suddenly brush a hand or cheek and make the county’s beaches seem much more than an hour’s drive.

Roast prime rib of beef--which the restaurant, to make a point, refers to simply as “prime”--accounts, in various guises, for several entries on the menu, the first of them as an appetizer named “prime tickler.” The sort of plate that might make sense if you were both ravenous and about to order a seafood entree, it consists of chunks of beef in, as the menu says, “au jus.”

But the restaurant accommodates all persuasions and quickly follows with a listing of assorted raw vegetables (the crudites of 1970s chic cuisine) with a bowl of “ranch” dressing as dip. Neither of these starters is common on restaurant menus, and also somewhat different is the Baja California-style shrimp cocktail, soaked in a bath of lime juice and cilantro-flavored salsa.

Other opening choices include meatballs baked with peppers, mushrooms and cheese; mushrooms sauteed with garlic, herbs and wine; “wing dings,” described rather colorfully by the menu as “hot and spicy chicken wings and legs of fire,” and the baked Brie, a reasonably sized wedge that is pleasantly warming after a stroll through Julian’s sharp night air. A bowl of hot, honey-sweetened mustard arrives on the side, but pretty much overpowers the cheese, which is happiest simply smeared on one of the assorted crackers standard at the Grille and, indeed, at most eating places in Julian.

Entrees include a salad or, more appropriate to the climate, one of the day’s soups. The choice recently ran from gazpacho, which sounded wrong for the moment, to a thickened chicken with vegetables whose chunks of tender flesh and occasional bits of bone and cartilage made clear that a real bird had gotten itself thoroughly involved in the process. The third choice, called French onion, was amateurish and completely spoiled by the cargo of commercial grated cheese it was forced to shoulder.

A menu note explains that most entrees can be ordered in a smaller portion at a $2 price reduction, which is a thoughtful and welcome gesture. In such cases as the smoked pork chops, this means one chop instead of two, which is enough for all but the largest appetites.

Seafood choices include a daily catch, halibut pan fried in garlic butter with peppers, onions and soy sauce, the inevitable shrimp “scampi,” shrimp tempura and a fisherman’s stew made with shellfish, vegetables and whatever fish the cook has on hand.

The entree list pays more attention to meat, however, and as mentioned earlier, prime rib stars. Available in small, regular (which seems more than sufficiently sized) and hefty cuts, the meat is sufficiently tender and well-flavored, and settled into an oval platter dribbled with juices. The creamed horseradish on the side is welcome but not truly necessary, since the beef is flavorful.

There are also several steaks; a dish described as “veal and crab with bearnaise” that, it must be supposed, is an approximation of veal Oscar; a dish of meaty rib bones that seemed quite popular on a recent visit and looked rather good, and the smoked pork chops, served with a house “applesauce” that is actually a lightly seasoned, barely cooked stew of sliced apples. The chops themselves were carefully cooked and moist, and, if one enjoys smoked meat--which greets the mountain setting in an appropriately robust manner--this is a good choice.

Nouvelle cuisine evidently has not gone entirely unnoticed in Julian, since wedges of one of its prime ingredients, kiwi fruit, join the vegetable garnish of bland steamed broccoli and buttery, roasted red potatoes. Kiwi with prime rib seems more than a bit odd, but is any case a minor point.

Desserts are not made on the premises, but the apple pie comes from a bakery across the street and is served hot, richly crusted and sweetened and spiced with restraint. It sends you back to the city feeling contented and well-fed.

THE JULIAN GRILLE 2224 Main St., Julian 765-0173 Lunch daily except Thursday, dinner nightly except Monday Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $35 to $55 Credit cards accepted