On the Bandera bandwagon

Kathy Mader

If you are looking for some atmosphere, the best beef ribs in town or

both, and are prepared to wait, Bandera Restaurant, on Pacific Coast

Highway in Corona del Mar, is your place.

Apparently, anyone who is anyone already knows about Bandera, and

there is nothing that this article is going to do to help or hurt

them, but I weigh in, nonetheless.

Bandera’s decor is the ultimate in what I originally thought was

black and tan, only to come early enough to see that the booths are

actually a dark green leather.

But let’s not split hairs. Bandera is a dark restaurant, with

elegant candlelight everywhere, making it very cozy and comfortable.

The only downside of this diner is the sheer volume of people,

volume as in numbers and sound. But this place is busy for a reason

-- several reasons, actually.

Bandera is one of the top Thursday night hangouts in the Newport

Beach area for the -- how shall I say it? -- non-Goat Hill crowd.

This crowd wants martinis with gorgonzola-stuffed olives; this crowd

wants cabernets and chardonnays from all over the world; and this

crowd gets it.

Granted, there are a lot of women in this crowd who look like they

have never so much as sampled comfort food, much less ordered it

every Thursday night, but here, they are part of the beautiful decor.

The bar is in the center of the restaurant, with plenty of booths

on both sides. But there is not a lot of seating, if any, for the

actual bar, so those patrons stand around, perilously close to the

lower level booths. It’s great for people watching, but not so great

for private dining.

My husband and I got utterly shut out on Thursday night -- they

must have known who we were -- so we went back again early on Sunday,

as in 4:30 p.m. early, and we were still fifth in line.

But I knew we were in the right crowd, the food crowd: The people

waiting were talking about the pie.

Clearly, this writer goes for the food. American comfort food is

how I would describe it, with honey-barbecue pork ($19) and prime rib

($23) or filets ($24), with the aforementioned beef ribs ($22) that

my truly carnivorous husband touts as the best in town. These babies

come piled high and are served with a roasted peanut coleslaw and

creamy mashed potatoes with scallions, leaks and parsley.

Believe it or not, this extremely reluctant chicken eater orders

Bandera’s roasted chicken ($14) every time.

Right on the menu, it reads, “we take our rotisserie cooking very

seriously. ... Each day, a hardwood fire is built in our stone oven

(visible from PCH) ... and slow roast continuously throughout the day

(tantalizing from PCH).”

If you are not sold by the description, know that you can walk by

this restaurant any time and see the screened-in roasting spits,

a.k.a. rotisserie, smell it from a mile away and get the stomach

a-rumbling.

For an appetizer, we have ordered the roasted artichoke ($8) in

the past, but this time we ordered the pan-roasted clams. These clams

in the shell were piled high over a giant grilled sourdough “crouton”

and steeped in garlic, wine and shallots. Yum.

We also ordered the “nice little house salad” ($5) with avocado,

goat cheese, cabbage and greens in a tangy vinaigrette dressing. But

one of my Bandera destination dishes, the cornbread, usually sweet,

jalapeno-y, crispy and creamy, all at the same time was a little

disappointing this time. That, and the generally delicious mashed

potatoes; came out with interesting additions that I won’t go into.

But the coup de grace, the creme de la banana creme, Bandera’s

banana cream pie ($6), with chunks of fresh banana, homemade caramel

sauce and crushed chocolate, was, as usual, to die for. I can’t

imagine this ever being disappointing. One of these times I will have

to try the ice cream Oreo sandwiches.

Bandera invites two kinds of people, the kind that order this pie,

one for now and one for the road, and the kind that would never even

look for it on the menu.

If the line out front is any indication, it serves both well.

* KATHY MADER reviews restaurants for the Daily Pilot.