CLUB FOOD : High-Priced Spreads : Three establishments charging membership fees and dues serve up some pretty good--not great--food.

Joining a private club for its food isn’t the most economical way to go in Ventura County, and it can be gastronomically disappointing.

At the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club on Channel Islands Harbor, yachting is the name of the game. At The Tower Club atop the high-rise Union Bank Building in Oxnard, business is the mainstay of conversation.

Now comes the Sherwood Club. You’d have to be more interested in golf or tennis than in food to consider joining this private operation, the county’s newest and poshest club.

But don’t get this wrong. Each of these clubs serves up some pretty good food. None of it, however, is great, which is why you probably would not spend the $150,000 it takes to join Sherwood if food is your reason for being. (You may pay $150,000, please note, only if you live within the 1,990-acre Lake Sherwood development. It costs still more if, poor thing, you do not. Either way, annual dues are $6,000.)

But if by chance you should eat here, you’ll find plush surroundings. The architecture of the main clubhouse is sort of Georgian. Inside, there’s a gorgeous, luxuriously cozy spot in front of the fireplace to have a very well prepared before-dinner drink.

Then, on to the dining room. Buffets seem to be popular here. I’ve been on the premises twice, and in neither instance was an a la carte menu available. The club has just over 100 members, and chef Pierre Moly, formerly of Las Posas Country Club, finds a buffet easier to handle.

The buffet ($45, plus a 20% service charge) features a fairly conventional table of appetizers, with pate and smoked salmon plus an interesting cold celery root salad. The salmon is surrounded by small bagels and doughy rolls; when one of us asked for crisp toast, it came immediately. Service is excellent.

But there are only a few main dishes that might prompt one to turn off the freeway. The macaroni and cheese, a luxurious and expensive preparation, is very good. And best is the hot celery root and spinach, with its combination of moist and crisp textures, in savory Roquefort cheese. But most other main dishes would not be worth the trip: overcooked lobster Thermidor, overcooked veal stew, among others. Desserts are nothing to write home about.

The Sherwood Club, tucked way in the hills behind Lake Sherwood, is certainly a contrast to the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club.

At the PC, where initiation fees are $3,000 and annual membership dues are $1,200, you’re talking about your basic Southern California yachting operation, with better food and more professionalism than most.

Manager Tom McDonough brings 30 years of food and beverage service. This might explain the quality of the food. On one particular evening, armadillo eggs ($4.95) were outstanding. These are breaded jalapeno peppers stuffed with cheese and then deep-fried. They’ve got to be hot to be good, and they are, in more ways than one. On the other side of the table, however, the Caesar salad ($4.75) came with a massive overdose of its eggless dressing.

Dover sole Florentine ($16.95), a frequent special, arrives beautifully, softly cooked and lying on a bed of creamed spinach and sprinkled with pine nuts. The North Beach broil ($16.95) was plainer: slices of marinated flank steak, topped with sauteed peppers and onions.

The harbor view from the dining room is especially glittery these winter nights. The room itself is sort of a cross between Early Yacht Club and today’s concessions to more upholstery and heavier carpet.

But when it comes to views, honors go to The Tower Club. Perched atop the 22-floor Union Bank Building, across the street from The Esplanada shopping center in Oxnard, this is a business and social club, five years running now. Its membership, about 900 strong, pays $2,200 to get in and $600 a year in dues.

The dining room and bar areas are luxuriously furnished. In the evenings, there’s often a guitar player near the fireplace. In the kitchen, chef Francois Milliet, formerly with the Ojai Valley Inn, does his thing.

It would be fair, I think, to say that The Tower’s salads are not especially distinguished--except for the Maryland crab cake salad ($11.95). This baby boasts small, thick, crisp crab cakes on the side of a salad of mescalun lettuce tossed with green onions and almonds. The sweet corn dressing almost draws the spicy crab cakes into the lettuce.

The Absolut salmon ($21) features grilled Norwegian salmon, cooked mostly in a sauce of its own roe and julienne of smoked salmon and sour cream, and set in a black pepper and vodka sauce. That sounds awfully complicated, and it tastes that way, but the result is a good fish dish.

The entrecote foyot ($19.95) is a decent piece of meat, this one a New York steak served with French green beans and foyot sauce, a bearnaise with a meat glaze that I found to be too sweet.

At The Tower, one of the stars is a particular dessert--a slice of pecan bourbon chocolate cake--the bourbon saving the rest from being too sweet.

Service can be so-so, but at the end of the meal, when the complimentary chocolate truffles are set on the table, you almost forget that.

* FYI

* Sherwood Country Club, 320 W. Stafford Road, Thousand Oaks. 496-3036.

* Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club, 2600 S. Harbor Blvd., Oxnard. 985-7292.

* The Tower Club, 300 Esplanade Drive, Oxnard. 983-7777.