Gooey Fare That’s Hard to Stick Up For

Should you feel the crushing need to dine in Rancho Santa Fe but constrained by the inability to handle the tariff at Mille Fleurs or Delicias, there’s always Quimby’s. Be forewarned that certain differences exist between the two upwardly-crusty joints and Quimby’s, the Rancho Santa Fe equivalent of a neighborhood coffee shop.

About as close to a town hangout as this upscale community is likely to accommodate, Quimby’s had a long career that ended in the early 1980s; the hiatus between that closing and its recent resurrection spanned most of a decade. But the location remained, and few differences separate the old Quimby’s and the new.

The mood remains markedly informal. This is definitely a family restaurant, a fact that must be accepted if a nearby youngster commences howling--and the dishes, added together, constitute an “enlightened” coffee shop menu that lists pastas and fancy salads alongside the hamburgers and tuna melts.

Vaguely neo-Colonial in style, the dining room features thick brick pillars, heavy oak furniture, more than enough clattering silverware to provide a diner-type ambience, and service that always seems long on smiles, if it sometimes is rather tardy in getting to the point.

If Quimby’s revenues depended on the smiles of its clientele (as in the long run, of course, they do) it would have lost money on a recent lunch shared by a pair of guests. The overall, indelible impression gained from the soups, entrees and dessert was of a restaurant that not only understands goo, but seems devoted to its propagation.

One dish even managed to be burned on the underside, basically raw on top and gooey in the middle, which is, in a way, quite an accomplishment, although not perhaps the sort that restaurants generally seek to achieve.

The sole exception to the routine was the vegetable soup; robust, flecked with bits of meat, a little long on the tomatoes, perhaps, but nicely populated by pals from the garden. The old-fashioned flavor and full-bodied broth were warming and reassuring and did nothing to foreshadow the items that would follow.

The soup du jour , touted as “Maui onion,” seemed primarily a thick white sauce in which a few shreds of onion--the Maui kind, doubtlessly--played a game of hide-and-seek with both the spoon and the tongue. When a bit of onion actually was located, it had a sweet, onion-y flavor. But, sifting through the bland white sauce in search of these bits definitely was not worth the bother.

Off in entree-land, the “New England crabcake” with what Quimby’s menu lists as “our special lobster sauce” seemed too good to miss, although a warning should have been taken from the name, since crab cakes are native to Maryland, not New England.

There were actually two of these mounds of crab, flecked and flavored nicely with shredded bell pepper but darkly crisped and greasy on one side, and utterly unbrowned on top. The overall texture between these extremes was mushy. The lobster sauce, whatever elements may have combined to give it its unique character, seemed gooey and chewy between the teeth and tasted mostly of salt.

Less gooey, if not entirely innocent of the this characteristic, the mostaciolli pasta jumbled with bits of chicken, such vegetables as carrots, zucchini and yellow squash, some cilantro and a little grated cheese, which was certainly generous but not very good.

The piece de resistance of the meal took the form of the “apple pie,” which the waiter said was the one dessert prepared on the premises, and which, without question, they should not attempt to make. A guest took a bite of the undercrust--this open-faced “pie” mercifully lacked a top crust--and questioned if it were not be made of rubber.

The resilient dough, topped by a few apple slices that had been treated unkindly, was smeared with a mucilaginous topping that defied identification but gave “goo” a whole new definition; it almost refused to be cut by the fork.

There are many other dishes, and some of these may be prepared in a more friendly fashion.

Among options are Cobb salad; a hot spinach salad; a popover stuffed with scrambled eggs, ham, cheese and vegetables; chicken enchiladas; calf’s liver with bacon, mushrooms and onions; roast chicken with the restaurant’s “Kona BBQ seasoning”; hamburgers, club and other sandwiches, and a children’s menu that offers a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This may be one of the safer bets.

Quimby’s

6105 Paseo Delicias, Rancho Santa Fe

Calls: 756-2855

Hours: Lunch and dinner daily

Cost: Sandwiches and entrees $4.95 to $9.95; a meal for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $20 to $40