Two Views on the Ranch House : On a stormy evening, the restaurant offers a warm, exotic setting for a meal that doesn’t disappoint a diner with high expectations.

Despite my never having been there, the Ranch House had for decades occupied a lofty place in my mind, fueled by high praise and exclamations of pleasure from friends who had eaten there. At some point, I must have decided that it was just too expensive for me.

It is expensive. The entrees are almost all more than $20, and the soups and salads are extra. But there is something out of the ordinary about this restaurant, both in sustenance and setting, that makes it one of the most enticing dining experiences in the county.

Recently, we drove through pouring rain, sure that when we arrived we would be the only ones in the restaurant. The place was packed. Seen from the parking lot, colored Christmas lights delineated the irregular shape of a building that looked as if it had a whimsical history of expansion.

We walked under a gigantic old oak and into the restaurant. To our surprise, we were shown out onto the patio. The hostess kept up a reassuring patter to keep us from bolting to our car. The patio is covered with a remarkable wisteria vine, growing under a plastic or glass roof, so no rain penetrated it. We sat out there, surrounded by an enchanted forest of bamboo, eucalyptus and oleander. With the pouring rain and the toasty space heaters, it was like a visit to an exotic, tropical island.

The menu was quite simple, while the wine list seemed encyclopedic. I immediately fell out of the good graces of the wine steward by snorting in disbelief when he offered an $11 glass of Chardonnay. But, I had come for the food, and I was not disappointed.

Three kinds of home-baked bread were set on the table; the thin-sliced, dense yet light pumpernickel was marvelous. The soups were amazing too. A chicken tortilla soup had the color and consistency of pureed lentils and a spiciness that interacted nicely with the subtle seasoning.

The salad of tossed baby greens was good, although not remarkable. I loved the raw vegetable salad, with carrots, beets and jicama, julienned until they were as tender as butter lettuce and then coated with a tangy yogurt vinaigrette.

Although the Ranch House hasn’t been a strictly vegetarian restaurant for years, it has never given up its fondness for--indeed its devotion to--vegetables grown, along with herbs and teas, in its own garden. All of our entrees came with yellow crookneck squash, sliced in half, and carrots in a perky, pineapple cardamom sauce that brought to mind tangerine Kool-Aid.

Leg of lamb ($23.95) was unbelievably tender, served with a dark port wine sauce that could have been sweetened with prunes. Yorkshire pudding was disappointingly tough, but the very fine portion of pink prime rib that came with it had no such problem. It was served with a terrific whipped horseradish sauce.

Fresh whole trout, deboned and delicate, was perfectly cooked and needed no sauce. Even better, however, was the sea bass in a wonderful mustard and white wine sauce with lemon-glazed onions.

I don’t always approve of desserts. If the meal is great, why ruin it by overeating at the end? And if it isn’t, how is an abundance of sugar going to help? The desserts at the Ranch House have made me rethink this stance. We tried a rich chocolate brownie topped with peppermint ice cream and a New Orleans delight that consisted of layers of meringue, coffee ice cream and tantalizing, brown sugar praline sauce (both $4.95). Sweet, yes, but also wonderfully refreshing.

This restaurant may have been designed as an oasis for California’s hot, dry climate, but it turned out to be a haven on a cold, wet winter’s night. That evening, the mythical, mysterious Ranch House lived up to its reputation.