FOOD REVIEW : The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Fair’s fair. Not every place got tested. No doubt, there are stars that went unseen, culinary successes that went unsavored.

Even of those tested, samples were limited. It was learned, for example, that CVS drugstore employees at The Oaks--who should know better than mall workers?--swear by the food at Olga’s, possibly the mall’s most popular sit-down restaurant. But in two visits, two duds were served, one of them amid the dust of a teen-age employee’s nearby carpet-sweeping. Perhaps the CVS crowd orders differently.

Good luck, hungry shopper.

Clearly, the task at hand was not to graze through the full menus of nearly 40 food purveyors renting space in Ventura County’s three major malls. Instead, it was this: to act like a shopper by going to the mall and impulsively, even arbitrarily, dropping in on the place that seemed most promising at any given moment. Sometimes that was for a full, sit-down dinner. Other times, a quick stand-up snack.

A word about standards, finally. Whether a slice of pizza on the run or a fancy seafood meal in a restaurant, comparisons were made the same way: for freshness, for flavor, for cleanliness and for the care with which the food was served. That’s why it’s better, if you’re at The Esplanade, to stick with something so modest as a plain, ungreasy, flavorful slice of Tony’s Pizza and avoid the more ambitious but over-sauced, gluey, leaden chicken curry at New China.

The Oaks

With by far the most choices available, The Oaks can nonetheless vex. Restaurants and snack bars alike are sprinkled throughout the vast, two-story mall. So don’t change your mind once at Best Chinese, whose sliced pork glows so radiantly beneath a dyed red sauce that it went unordered, and decide to head to the fancier Cafe California; that’s a good 12-minute trek, even if you know how to find the cafe, tucked away up on the third floor of The Broadway.

Easily the best meal taken here was at The Magic Pan, at the mall’s center entrance and outpost of the San Francisco-based chain that built a reputation in oh-so-quaint crepes. The menu’s been updated, happily, and recently featured an authentic, well-turned-out Caesar salad and a highly imaginative pasta dish of multicolored pappardelle with chicken and a sauce of mushrooms, garlic, white wine and unlikely jalapenos ($8.95). Service was excellent and so against mall-grain: mature, informed, responsive, solicitous. The Magic Pan features the mall’s only full bar, which makes wines available by the glass. The dining room here reaches for English salon and nearly grabs it; in any event, it’s great mall refuge.

The corn dog has its adherents, and I am one. After the pliers episode (see main story), I decided to catch Hot Dog on a Stick another day in a brighter mood. It worked. Is there a more frivolously American taste than the hot dog cloaked in perfectly fried corn bread spiked with yellow mustard? Not for $1.50. And not in this mall. The real lemonade here only amplifies this franchise’s philosophy: Do a few things well. If you’re on the run, and if the servers aren’t wielding mechanic’s tools, this place is the ticket.

Sweeney’s is one of the sweeter environments here: softly lit wood booths and overhead fans for that old-time feel, with wonderful service to boot. Sadly, the menu’s highly touted spinach salad was overwhelmed by ultraviscous Italian dressing, underserved by cold, fatty and flavorless bacon (last week’s?) and set atop two broad romaine leaves, the freshest in the bowl. Special sandwich of the day? Turkey club. Pressed turkey loaf, the same very dead bacon, with lettuce--passable but not worth the trouble or the $5.95.

Pizza of darkest distinction: Round Table’s by the slice ($1.65). This is a pepperoni wedge with enough counter time for the stiff crust to leach plenty of grease and the cheese to harden up. Plainly, tire tread.

Snack of darkest distinction: Pretzel With Cheese’s pretzel with cheese ($1.15). Stale pretzel, for the cardboard effect. The dollop of orange process cheese food in the little paper cup? A plastic knife with which to spackle it on? Whose idea is this?

Coffee, both ways: an unfortunate, bitter cafe latte ($1.60) from a gorgeous Gaggia machine at the prominent G. J.’s Espresso Bar, reaching for the piazza vibe. Better luck with plain brews--Kenyan, Guatemalan among them--upstairs at the somewhat precious Gloria Jean’s Coffee Bean.

Feeling sad? Cheer up at Mrs. Powell’s Cinnamon Rolls, where $1.65 buys a baseball diamond of eggy dough beneath a mantle of sugar and cinnamon. There’s no apology for anything this marvelously grotesque and satisfying, but then you’ll only do it once, maybe twice a year. It’s as sure a bet as the corn dog.

Olga’s is always crowded and, it seems, with happy faces. What do they order? Not the special Caesar salad with chicken strips and grated Parmesan cheese ($5.95), for the white meat chicken tastes old and is mushy in texture, and the Caesar dressing is without bite. Neither can it be the Olga Special sandwich ($3.85), in which generous strips of seasoned meats have been joined by lettuce, tomato and onion, and wrapped in Olga’s signature pita-like bread and spiked with the highly touted Olgasauce; no, this ersatz gyro lacks flavor, both in the gray-brown meat and the tepid yogurt-based sauce, leaving only the truly wonderful, warm, elastic bread to ponder--and that girl who sweeps up within feet of you as you eat and shield your food from her dust.

Besides the Magic Pan, The Oaks’ other play at elegant dining comes atop the Broadway at the Cafe California, a windowless room with wood tables, wall-to-wall carpeting, subdued lighting and the generic feel of Any American Department Store or Hotel, circa 1980. However, the service is terrific and brings a very 1992 menu, touting California cuisine of a bold stripe. A Gorgonzola with candied walnut salad was pungent, bracing, fresh in the greens, and in every respect delightful. A special of “grilled orange roughy” would be sauteed only after dipping in a heavy egg batter, however, though the result was not altogether unsatisfying. The fish got little help, though, from overcooked rice and green beans seasoned with a liquid agent standing in, unsuccessfully, for real bacon--or was it ham?

Elsewhere at The Oaks, you’ll find sure bets of the familiar, anywhere kind: McDonald’s, Carl’s Jr., Taco Bell, Hickory Farms, Orange Julius, La Boulangerie, Mrs. Field’s Cookies, and sweets from See’s Candies, Sweet Factory and Yogurt Connection.

Pick up a directory at the entrance--it’ll help you find what you need when hunger or fatigue sets in.

The Esplanade

Yolie’s Mexican Cafe is the sister of the popular, ever-reliable Yolanda’s Mexican restaurants in Ventura and Oxnard, with an entrance to the mall parking lot as well as off the food court, inside the mall’s main entrance. While you won’t scale any culinary heights, neither will you go wrong on a fine, plentiful, sit-down meal: good chips, cilantro-fresh salsa and tender tomato-edged chicken fajitas ($8.95) that arrive, ostentatiously a-sizzle, on a platter with generous accompaniments that include an out-sized portion of fresh guacamole. Service couldn’t be friendlier. The room? Plain but nicely cloistered from the mall.

The other main sit-down dining room off the food court is something of an institution: Oyster Bay, in residence since the mall opened. Unwittingly retro in appearance, with a wide-open bar entrance to the food court area, the place is trapped in looks somewhere between an airport lounge (a colleague asks: Is that place a bar?) and a mid-’60s, take-Mom-for-lunch downtown restaurant. Happily, it is neither. The shrimp cocktail defends the maritime name: fresh, abundant, tender and served with plenty of celery and mildly spiced sauce. The romance quickly ended, however, as the touted clam chowder, New England-style, came up bland, lacking for mollusks and long on flour. Sandwich of the day? Tuna. Listless and underseasoned. Why bother?

From here, it’s food on the run--unless you’re willing to entomb yourself in tiny sit-down space behind New China, whose green-sheened chicken curry is over-sauced and leaden. Keep it simple instead: a slice at Tony’s Pizza, less than memorable but very fresh, with good dough and friendly service. Or the original, sweet, energizing Orange Julius, from the storefront emblazoned with shining plastic oranges, avoiding at all costs the stale nachos with gooey cheese food and jalapenos (by what logic do they even appear on the menu?).

You’ll also see Tokyo Teriyaki here, which shares a twin outlet at Buenaventura Mall. The trim, smiling women at this counter will see you coming, so be ready even if you’re just walking by: “Hello! How are you today, sir! Special for you?! Any three with rice $3.59! You like pork?!” What I like is to have a no-strings look and not to have to fight for the privilege.

You do get used to it, though Pam Hartwell, mall manager, drops her head in her hands when asked about the technique. “Oh, I hear about it from customers who say they won’t even enter that side of the mall because it annoys them so. We’ve talked to them about it. They’re nice and they’ve toned it down.” In any event, the sauteed vegetables and steamed rice are perfectly done, restorative, free of the usual gelatinous goo of over-the-counter Asian food, and worth all the declinations.

Buenaventura Mall

With The Oaks’ restaurants spread out and The Esplanade’s tucked into what was once a corridor of retail space, the restaurants at Buenaventura form Ventura County’s only bona fide food court. They are arranged in two arcs that frame a common seating area at the south entrance to the mall. Missing are any real restaurants. The offerings are standard enough--A & W Hot Dogs & More, 1 Potato 2, Corn Dog among them--with one interesting exception: Maritere’s Mexican Food, literally up against the doors. Here the chicken quesadilla ($3.75) is the perfect lunch, plentiful in mixed cheeses with fragrant pieces of grilled chicken.

Sbarro, the Italian Eatery is a recent addition to the mix and a welcome one. The pizza here is the best from among all three malls, if not memorable or a challenge to the strange triumph sold outside the Price Club (to cite shopping anomalies). A pepperoni slice ($2.29) was huge, laden with cheese and brightened by a fresh tomato sauce. A salad (99 cents), however, was par with that you would see aboard any Delta flight and, paired with the pectin-heavy containerized Italian dressing, it was less than refreshing. Spaghetti and meatballs? There the noodles await you in the keep-it-warm bin. Sorry, it was a bit too much of a challenge for me to try.

Tokyo Teriyaki (see above notes from The Esplanade) did OK on sauteed chicken--it was tender and plentiful, if swimming in sauce--but failed miserably on skewered shrimp, which were dried out and metallic in flavor. Try the sauteed vegetables instead.

Or switch hit and go across the way to Chinese Combo King, where $3.49 will get you a plate of spicy chicken, perhaps a bit long on celery and peanuts but nicely flavored, properly cooked and ample in portion.

Sadly, however, if you’re looking for a good burger or piece of fish, your best bet is a 200-yard walk out the door and across the parking lot to Fuddruckers.

A snack? Dessert? Check Hot Sam (two pretzels for $1.50), Creative Croissants or Fosters Jr. Freeze. But you will have to judge for yourself. I’ll be recovering at the mall’s other best eatery, located far from the food court, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, where the freshly brewed coffee is varied, fresh and clean.