San Diego Spotlight : Bay View Fails to Redeem Careless Cooking, Service

Neither unwritten nor published laws decree that waterside eateries must offer mediocre cooking, yet it’s easy enough to imagine that at least some of the tourists, when they leave Coronado’s new Bay Beach Cafe, say, “Well, who expects to eat well at a place with such a great view, anyway?”

The inherent injustice of such a comment is that these days some restaurants with views actually do try to furnish the plates to match the scenery.

The Bay Beach Cafe occupies choice digs at the northernmost end of The Ferry Landing collection of shops, which is to say that it sits just across the bay from downtown San Diego, and downtown unquestionably looks smashing from this vantage point. To describe the scene outside outside the windows as a million-dollar view is to seriously undervalue it.

The restaurant consists of a dining room and bar, an enclosed terrace and an open deck, all contemporary in style, with a hint of the nautical thrown in as a reference both to the setting and to the approaching America’s Cup races; the crews of several sailing syndicates, New Zealand particularly, are likely to bunk in Coronado, and Bay Beach stands a fair chance of becoming unofficial headquarters for them. It is, in short, a handsome, comfortable, relaxed place, one that even can be reached by ferry from downtown San Diego by anyone who prefers water transportation. The location is just about certain to guarantee the place full tables.

Alex Fairchild, formerly chef at Dobson’s, heads the kitchen. He has considerable talent and has written a menu that reads very well, but by and large the execution falls short. Both California-Southwestern and formal French styles share the bill, sometimes combined, as in the case of the entree of tournedos of beef with both tomatoed pesto and bordelaise sauce. Given the location and the casual crowds, the menu quite appropriately offers a fair amount of beach grub, including a soup-salad bar, a hamburger and the “bayfish” sandwich with garlic mayonnaise and pineapple relish.

Both the cooking and the service point to a lack of direction from the top. The servers, mostly young, are also mostly charming, willing and friendly to a fault. As is the case elsewhere, you find it hard to blame them for not doing things right when they obviously have had minimal or no training. One night’s server brought the entrees on the heels of the first course, with the explanation that the kitchen’s timing was off. This was not an acceptable excuse, since guests, not the kitchen, set the pace, and servers who know the ropes do not turn in the entree order until the table has finished the first course.

The appetizers are relatively formal, and, priced mostly from $6.95 to $8.95, may be intended to double as entrees for those in search of a light meal. The choice includes a plate of grilled, assorted sausages, warm Brie sauced with pesto, baked New Zealand mussels, a duck liver mousse and a plate of garlic-flavored marinated shrimp that proved to be meaty, tasty and one of the restaurant’s better offerings.

Soups and salads are a mixed bag. A spicy sausage soup that shares many characteristics with chili and went down quite well seems a house favorite, since it appeared as the soup du jour of both visits. The house salad, composed of good, tender greens sprinkled with crumbled feta cheese, also satisfied. But a fancier, more extravagant plate billed as “tomato and goat cheese salad” was a case of applied literalism that just didn’t work; the serving consisted solely of stacked, sliced tomatoes layered here and there with slices of goat cheese. A small amount of acceptable vinaigrette moistened this tower-like arrangement, but not a speck of greenery garnished the plate, which looked unfinished and somewhat forlorn.

The kitchen’s one shining moment among the entrees took the form of the most gigantic scallops in memory (these were huge, but tender and sweet), dusted with flour, gilded in hot butter and dressed with a puckery pineapple relish that suited them perfectly. The scalloped potatoes and vegetables on the side were perfunctory at best, a comment that applies equally to the plate garnish of the subsequent visit.

An entrecote (this French term specifies a rib of beef treated as a steak) was listed as broiled with a “three pepper corn sauce,” but it had been stewed, simmered, braised or pot-roasted in the thick, murky, amateurish sauce. It was remarkably overcooked; meat that had been broiled never could have had a texture like this. Veal medallions in honey mustard sauce offered competently cooked meat, but the sauce tasted basically just like the honey mustard anyone can spoon from a jar, with no elaboration. The day’s catch, swordfish with capers and a sun-dried tomato relish, was cut too thinly and was tough and dry, and such sauce as there was did nothing to improve the situation. A hamburger would seem a basic requirement for a casual restaurant in this location, and Bay Beach offers one, topped with melted cheese, at the not inconsiderable price of $7.95. The meat had been packed into a thin, tough patty--ground beef requires light handling if a juicy burger is the desired result--before it was overcooked, slipped into a large bun and sided with soggy, waffle-cut potatoes.

The dessert tray offers fairly simple pastries, several tending toward chocolate, of which the most satisfying probably is the chocolate pecan pie.

BAY BEACH CAFE The Ferry Landing, 1st St. at Orange Ave., Coronado, 435-4900, Lunch and dinner daily,Entrees cost $10.95 to $15.95; dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, $35 to $65 Credit cards accepted