VENTURA COUNTY WEEKEND : Rosarito Beach Cafe Opens Again for Lunch : Midday offerings will be much like those at a taqueria. Sunday brunches are also planned.

It’s been a couple of years since Sandy Smith stopped serving lunch at his Rosarito Beach Cafe in Ventura.

It wasn’t that lunch was unpopular. It was that Smith, owner and executive chef of the 9-year-old establishment, wanted to preserve his health and well-being.

“Lunch was always successful, but being the chef was just nuts,” he said. “All of the food preparation had to happen before 10:30 in the morning. As it is, we prepare all day for dinner. It was a mental-health decision, not a business decision.”

But times have changed.

In addition to operating Rosarito Beach, he now co-owns two other Ventura restaurants, the Busy Bee Cafe and Joe Daddy’s Cajun restaurant and blues club. And it’s the kitchen at Joe Daddy’s that will enable Smith to reopen Rosarito Beach for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday, beginning next Tuesday.

“We only have one kitchen at Rosarito Beach. It was a madhouse when we used to have lunch,” Smith said. “Now we can take some of the food preparation to the other kitchen, at Joe Daddy’s.” Smith said a crew of assistant chefs, to whom he can delegate the additional work, will also lessen the frantic pace of lunch.

What he and his staff will be preparing for lunch, said Smith, will be much like the offerings at a taqueria.

“We’ll have chicken and pork tortas, with the meat marinated and thinly sliced,” Smith said. “A classic torta has black beans and meat. Some of mine will be classic and some I’ll go off on, like I usually do.”

Smith said the torta fillings will be similar to the tacos alambres style of Northern Mexico, with the meat charbroiled, sliced and lightly sauteed with onions and peppers. The menu will also include a selection of corn tortillas with fresh fillings and a variety of salsas, several entrees, salads and soups.

Along with opening for lunch, Smith plans to start serving Sunday brunches, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., beginning Dec. 24. His brunch menu will include sopaipillas (corncakes), a variety of classic and special egg dishes, and champagne cocktails.

Rosarito Beach is at 692 E. Main St.

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Locals who have no place to go for Christmas dinner may want to consider buddying up to one of Cliff Chapman’s students at Oxnard College before the fall semester ends.

Chapman, an instructor in the school’s hotel and restaurant management program, has been showing his baking-techniques class how to prepare some fancy holiday breads and desserts.

“We’ve prepared Jewish challah, crescent rolls, Danish pastries, puff-pastry products like turnovers, and we’ve touched on French pastries,” said Chapman, a veteran baker and chef who commutes from his home in Lancaster for his twice-weekly classes.

“For their finals, the students are preparing bread and pastry projects they’ve been practicing throughout the semester.”

The last class will be held Tuesday, but Chapman is scheduled to return next semester, beginning Jan. 22, to teach a gourmet cooking class to advanced culinary arts students.

“We’ll have about 12 menus--four meat, four poultry, four seafood--that we will work with,” said Chapman, a certified instructor through the American Culinary Federation Educational Institute. “Students will be asked to prepare and garnish, and we will have an actual restaurant running on Monday evenings.”

The restaurant, which will be open to the public, will be set up in the campus’ occupational education building beginning the third or fourth week of the semester, depending on how quickly the students feel comfortable with their new skills, said Chapman.

“We’ll do some dry runs first,” he said, “where they will eat what they prepare.”

Leo Smith is a regular contributor to Ventura County Weekend. Write to him at 93 S. Chestnut St., Ventura 93001, or send faxes to 653-7576.