The Churches of Bakersfield, CA

I ran out of decent restaurants to explore and food to write about in Bakersfield, CA this summer. What's a blogger to do? I took my camera with me everywhere I went, and decided a photo essay on the churches between the Doubletree Inn and my school site was the perfect antidote.



Being a hedonistic/agnostic/atheistic type of person, I always look at churches and wonder about the spiritual connections people are making within their walls.



Rarely do I ever enter a church myself, save for a brief stint studying anthropology in Davis, when I regularly attended a variety of churches to complete a series of upper division coursework including but not exclusive to a course on cultural linguistics.



When traveling internationally, I have seen many different and awe inspiring churches.



Westminster Abbey in London, of course.



Notre Dame.



I have also visited the Catedral Metropolitana in the center of Mexico City, during a restoration project in the mid-90's.

Obviously, the churches of Bakersfield have nothing on any of these behemoths, in size, architecture and economic funding.



There must be something they all have in common, religion not withstanding.



But drive-bys of these buildings this summer left me unenlightened.



My all time favorite church, like the Catedral Metropolitana, is located in Mexico. On the Baja peninsula at the east end of the infamous Puerto Nuevo village, very close to the ruta libra. Outside the tourist strip of this village, there is abject poverty. There are shanties connected to one another via extra long electrical extension cords, held up by 2x4's and a little luck.



This chapel is tiny, maybe 5 pews on each side. But late one evening just a few nights before Christmas, I felt the spirit in there as much as I ever have anywhere.



I felt no such connection in Bakersfield. Maybe if I had gotten out of my car.

5 More Nights in Bakerfield: Night #2, continued

After TJ Maxwell's, we headed to The Bistro, a restaurant in the Four Points Sheraton hotel on the west side of town. I am wary of mid-level hotel restaurants. I just am. But Peter says the chef here informs his cooking with contemporary cooking methods (molecular gastronomy, anyone? Hanging with Herve This and Ferran Adria? I think not.) However, the menu is seasonal and it had literally changed the day prior to our arrival at the bar on Night #2. One item we ate was strange, and strangely kinda good.. The other item was just plain delicious.



First up were tempura'd artichoke hearts, in a honey sauce, with cream cheese. This sounds disgusting, actually, but I put my trust in Peter, the man who finds PF Changs to be fine dining. I was throwing caution into a strong leeward wind.



I don't know what the batter was around these artichoke hearts. It tasted ok, but it was thick and heavy although not overly fried. I only tasted it. But the honey sauce and the chokes themselves were just lovely. there was very little cream cheese, just enough for a hint which was pleasing. Enjoyable.



Next up was grilled salmon in an heirloom tomato sauce veirge served over an artichoke cake. This was amazing. I haven't had a better dish in I don't know how long. The fatty fish balanced the acidity of the heirloom tomatoes perfectly. The artichoke cake was mostly artichoke heart, with just a tiny bit of breading to hold it together, all served atop a bed of ever so slightly wilted watercress. I am salivating just thinking about it. This was fantastic.



D ended the evening smoking a stogie he had purchased at a downtown cigar bar. Bakersfield is a last bastion of civility in the sense that the patrons at the cigar bar are allowed to enjoy both their bar and their cigar simultaneously. Drinking and smoking. The way cigars are meant to be enjoyed. But, it was late and I rise early so he settled for smoking it on the balcony of my hotel room whilst talking on his cell phone. Tres romantique.

5 More Nights in Bakerfield: Night #2

I have been in touch with Peter Tittl, the food critic for one of the local Bakersfield newspapers. It turns out that he has a website he refers people to (who doesn't?) that lists his top ten restaurants in several categories. I used the fine dining category to inform some of my eating this week, although fine dining is a questionable category, either due to his personal taste or due to a lack of fine establishments in Bakersfield. PF Changs is on the fine dining list.

This night we made two stops. We started at the oldest restaurant in town, TJ Maxwell's. I'll qualify that by adding that the space has been a restaurant for a very long time. Since just prior to the 1900's, if I remember correctly. It used to be a bar called The Office, where literature on the menu states that men could call home from and in a completely honest way say they were still at the office. Ha ha. Later, it became a locale for gambling, and in one raid the mayor and the police chief were both brought in during the round up. Ha ha (really, that time). The architecture of the bar is beautiful and supports the imagination in visualizing just such an event.



I love these bar stools. Unsure what era these arrived in the building, but they are almost too perfect.



The menu relied heavily on creamy sauces, beurre blancs, alfredos, brown butters and so on. So we drank lovely little martinis and shared a wonderful sesame seared ahi appetizer before we went on out merry way. This was truly one of the better seared ahi dishes I have eaten. Heavily crusted in roast sesame, cooked firmly on the outside with that bright pink on the inside. If I come to Bakersfield again, I wouldn't be against ordering that as an entree portion.

5 More Nights in Bakerfield: Night #1

During this infinitely long summer of training, the waist band of all my pants and skirts are getting a little tighter. Unfortunately, this is not due to wonderful, exotic, interesting new kinds of food and different locales, or even a decent taco truck. This is all due to mediocre sandwiches, deep pit meat, and the array of cookies and cakes and pastries sent out to appease the trained. The trainee happens to be collateral damage. The trained are subject to all this thinly veiled junk food for one week. I am now starting week four.

So, my wonderful husband sent my off from Los Angeles with an ice chest full of healthy goodies. Good white wine, enough grapes to last a week or execute wine making in my hotel room, chicken sausages, cherries, ak-mak crackers and tztaziki. Yay!


Last night for supper I ordered from the "light and healthy" menu, a 300 calorie poached salmon with greens and roasted beets. The salmon was perfection, the greens were disastrously over-dressed, but the beets were superb. I was so exhausted that one small glass of wine sent me over the edge into sleep, blissful sleep.

5 Nights in Bakersfield: Night #5

Air Conditioning.


Bed.


Wine.


Room service.


Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.


Sleep.



The end.

5 Nights in Bakersfield: Night #4

This was the toughest day of the week. D drove all the way out to spend time with me, take me to dinner, and I came back to the hotel from my training with feet like little footballs and my hair a veritable fright wig from all the dry heat. I was solely in the mood to lay on the bed and watch crap tv. Instead I rallied and he took good care of me. We started by taking a long drive through seedy downtown Bakersfield looking for a Thai massage place or a decent day spa. Do not do this.

I wanted to go to a wine bar/Thai restaurant I had read about online, but strangely, I needed to unwind by eating and drinking before I could enjoy my dinner. Don't ask. So we ended up here, at Prime Cut Meats & Eats and Butcher Shop. Best food I ate all week.



This is a New Orleans inspired restaurant, and it is not a chain. The decor is cohesive and professional looking enough that I thought surely this at least has aspirations on chainage. And maybe it will become one eventually. But for now it is one-off.



There is all kinds of amusing and thematic signage covering every usable wall space, but this Blues Brothers vinyl, taken good care of, impressed me.



We drank huge martinis and ate beautiful, fresh, cold, massive oysters on the half shell. I don't usually love the big ones, but these were not overly creamy nor were they too fishy.



We also shared a small bowl of gumbo. Best gumbo I have ever eaten, full stop. Spicy, savory, smokey, big chunks of fish, andouille sausage, and crayfish. I was wowed.



In retrospect, we should have stayed put. We were well tended and the food was wonderful.

5 Nights in Bakersfield: Night #3

On night #3 (I spent night #2 huddled in my room, catching some z's under the AC) I threw caution to the wind and let my colleague choose a restaurant, even though I had several strong recommendations elsewhere. Knowing I will be here the rest of the week and one more upcoming, I am sure I will get plenty of opportunity to dine in other places.



So tonight we dined at Mama Tosca at the behest of my friend and colleague A. I get why he likes Moma Tosca. It's in an upscale mini-mall, and the decor and service were lovely. But the food was meh, and it was pricey. M and I started with the onion soup (NOT included in the price of dinner, but somehow the waiter made it sound inclusive. I don't mind spending the money but the soup was fairly flavorless.) It was Italian style, in a light broth with a few croutons and lots of shaved parm.



My main course was sea bass in an arabbiata style red sauce. I was in the mood for something light due to the 100+ weather, and this fit the bill. It could have been spicier, but the fish was fresh enough. The pasta was flavorless. Literally. Like eating soft newspaper. It tasted boxed and without even a trace of olive oil or butter. The veg was overcooked and slightly mushy.



A had the penne arabbiata with chicken. It looked nice enough, but the flavor was more or less the same as what I was eating. I felt bad he had to endure an entire bowl of pasta from a box for $25.



Our experience begs the following question: if a tiny little restaurant in Hemet, called Dattilo's on Florida, can make their own pasta from scratch daily and charge $15 an entree including soup or salad, why can't a fancier place in Bakersfield do the same for close to twice the price? My meal, including one glass of wine was $59. WTF?

5 Nights in Bakersfield: Night #1

Late in the first night of my two separate weeks in Bakersfield, D and I crossed the parking lot of the Double Tree Inn to nosh at the Black Angus. I gotta say, it weren't fancy, but it tasted good.



Simple, crispy green salad with lots o' veggies. Very fresh.



8 oz filet mignon w/sauteed onions on the side. Clean baked spud. Steamed mixed veg. I ate it and it was all good. I ate a lot of stuff in Bakersfield later in the week that made me wish I had gone back to Black Angus. Later in the week I was also perusing Chowhound message boards. Rereading the thread about the disappointment of Cut in Beverly Hills, I wish I had eaten a very decent steak at Black Angus both nights I went to Cut and had put that cash into my ING account instead.