1. PETE TITTL: Maxwell-done at one of city's best
BY PETE TITTL Contributing columnist pftittl@yahoo.com
I confess to being a petty person when it comes to politics. When Terry Maxwell decided to run
for City Council, my first thought was not whether he would bring common-sense wisdom to
government but whether the new job would get in the way of his great downtown restaurant.
Let's face it: In Bakersfield, the City Council is not adequately compensated. A token stipend, a
car allowance and a lot of hours in meetings and working with constituents. I didn't want to see
Maxwell taken away from what, since its inception, has been one of the top restaurants in
Bakersfield. Selfish, I know, but I value food more than public service.
(When I brought this up to Maxwell in a phone interview he reminded me that our country's
government was originally set up to have citizen politicians who serve one term and don't make a
career out of it. He also said he's enjoying his work on the council.)
The good news is that T.L. Maxwell's Restaurant & Bar is better than ever, with Maxwell still a
presence in the kitchen and dining room, based on our visits. The atmosphere is spectacular, the
staff solid, the food and wine superb, all capped by a dessert menu that has two exceptional,
can't-get-anywhere-else delicacies that inspire dreams of a revisit.
Reservations are a must since the restaurant has a small dining room and tight hours (5:30-9:30
on a Saturday; lunch was eliminated about two years ago, Maxwell said, though he still offers
private lunches and catering).
We got early reservations, and the place was packed even before our entrees arrived. The
banquet room was hosting a surprise birthday party, and Maxwell was shuffling between the two
areas without an ounce of stress on his face.
What to order, what to order. The menu here is not extensive and like Uricchio's nearby, it's
tweaked only occasionally, which means I've ordered and enjoyed almost everything on the
menu. I knew how special the rack of lamb ($32.95) is, so I convinced my companion to enjoy
that while I selected the orange roughy ($27.95).
The meals came with soup or salad, and there are three options for the salad (regular, mixed
greens and fresh spinach). All the dressings are house made. My companion enjoyed hers, but I
was the winner with the baked potato soup. We've all had hundreds of variations on potato soup
before, but this was so graceful, so charming with hints of sour cream and chive yet not slipping
into heaviness or a starchy weightiness that could ruin the entree. The hostess who saw us
enjoying it made a funny remark along the lines of, "What am I doing out here when we have
baked potato soup?" Good question.
My companion pronounced the rack of lamb the best she's ever had. I'd rank it right up there with
an amazing rack of lamb I was served at the Coachlight up in the northeast back in the '80s that
had an amazing cabernet sauce. Maxwell's uses Australian lamb, and it's a particularly meaty

2. portion at that -- four bones with so much lamb on the lower end that you feel satiated on a
protein level when you're done. It appears as if the rosemary-merlot sauce, with just a hint of
mint, is applied in the cooking process, like a barbecued piece of beef, with the result that it
better permeates the lamb and forms a fascinating crust on the outside. If you enjoy rack of lamb,
for your own sake, try this version with one of the long list of cabs on the wine list. Your mood -
- nay your life itself -- will be improved.
I will sound less rhapsodic when discussing my fish entree, but in its own way it was just as
satisfying. Orange roughy is a mild fish I've long enjoyed, though I understand it's suffering from
overfishing so I've ordered it less often. This mildness makes it a blank slate when it comes to
sauces. The version here features olive oil, white wine, rum, cilantro and chunks of mango. That
sounds impossibly complicated, but it's not. The purity of the sweetness from the rum and fruit is
offset by the sharpness of the cilantro and hominess of the olive oil. Like most of the fare at T.L.
Maxwell's, it had an inventiveness that has to help build up the regulars. You can't get this just
anywhere. And I should mention that the steamed broccoli and zucchini served with both meals
had just a hint of garlic in the mix, and the vegetables were not overcooked.
For dessert, we can't not order the South African pudding malva ($6.95), which isn't the pudding
Americans typically envision but is best described as a sponge cake sweetened with apricot jam
and surrounded on the plate by a vanilla sauce that is (once again) a perfectly matched
companion. My companion and I like to split dessert, but in this case we didn't actually partition
it before the feeding frenzy began, and both felt the other ate too fast and more than half. We're
checking the video evidence even as I write this. The solution next time will be to order two
desserts, the other being Paula's turtle ($6.95) that Maxwell said is running neck and neck in
popularity. We've had that before and loved it: a butter-chocolate cookie crust, crème anglaise
and a candied pecan crust on top. A small price to pay for less animosity on the way home.
The story of the malva's creation is a key part of its appeal. Maxwell discovered the delicacy in
his travels and in the days before Food Network and the Internet, he struggled to re-create the
recipe. He's the type of owner who's very active in the kitchen and dining room.
One other thing worth mentioning is the occasional wine dinner Maxwell hosts. I haven't been to
one recently, but the proprietor and his crew do a fantastic job pairing the foods with the wines
(the one in February was $65 for a five-course meal with three wines). Check it out.
The wine list is a piece of work --mostly Napa, Sonoma, some Central Coast and European
choices worked in. A nice by-the-glass list, and the house cab and chardonnay are C.K. Mondavi
for $7 a glass. Corkage is $15 a bottle but $25 a bottle if they have the wine on their list, a
reasonable policy.
The interior is legitimately old, but not dated, and seemed perfect with the jazz music playing
softly in the background. The back of the menu includes the history of the restaurant, which for
the longest time was called The Office. This allowed wayward husbands who wanted to bend an
elbow with friends to tell their wives, honestly, that they'd be "at The Office." Semantics can be
wonderfully creative.

3. Service was absolutely perfect from our waitress, Kim, who was gracious, able to tick off all the
details of the three nightly entree specials (I'd prefer a printed menu insert, given how intricate
the creations are) and seemed to be in the right place at the right time, always with a smile on her
face. She's seriously worth requesting, such an asset was she to our dining experience.
T.L. Maxwell's Restaurant & Bar can be recommended for a fine dining experience.