California Roadhouse is not a place to watch your diet.

Perhaps it was inevitable that one of the newest additions to Mountain
View's restaurant row would be a takeoff on the old-fashioned country
roadhouse, from rough-sawn pine clapboards and vintage license plates
on the walls to buckets of peanuts on the tables. Virtually every
other cuisine already was represented on Castro Street when the
California Roadhouse opened in September.

Steak is big in the South Bay and this restaurant delivers the beef.
Midwestern sirloin, New York strip, rib eye, filet mignon, and
porterhouse dominate the menu -- most of the cuts available in both
small and large portions. They're more likely to be graded choice than
prime but they're seasoned simply, grilled properly and priced right
-- as low as $10.99 for a 6-ounce sirloin.

Diners who aren't keen on slabs of meat risk disappointment, though.
Most of the salads, side dishes and non-beef entrees my companions and
I ate on a recent rainy night were ordinary at best.

In keeping with its name, California Roadhouse is a casual, relaxed
place with an atmosphere that encourages good times. The greeting is
hearty coming and going. Servers are friendly and accommodating,
although we soon wearied of our waiter's automatic response to every
request, ``Absolutely!''

Most seats in the 260-seat dining room are in a cozy, elevated booth.
Industrial style lamps bow over each laminate table, where two small
galvanized buckets stand -- one filled with raw peanuts in the shell
and the other empty and waiting for discarded shells.

Ice water comes with a slice of orange, a nice touch. Warm, soft
focaccia rolls, brushed with roasted garlic oil, usually arrive right
after the menus. Don't wait as long as we did to ask for them if they
don't show. They were a high point of the meal.

Among the appetizers, the indulgent blooming onion flower ($5.99) was
a hit, cliche or not. What's not to like about a sweet onion cut like
a chrysanthemum and deep fried until its spiky petals are browned and
crunchy? Too bad Executive Chef David Jamerock is planning to remove
it when he refines the menu in the next month or so.

Crab cakes ($9.99), extolled by the server, were underwhelming. The
two small cakes were bland, more filler than crab. Better was the
little salad of balsamic dressed greens that served as a garnish.

Entrees range from steak and barbecue to fish and pasta. All but the
pastas come with a choice of sides, including several variations on
potatoes, baked beans, vegetables, saffron rice, and salad.

To wash them down, there are five beers on draft and 10 in bottles
plus a lineup of wines that includes some interesting Spanish, Italian
and Argentine reds at good prices sprinkled among the usual California
vintages.

Deciding to stick to the roadhouse theme, we bypassed the Thai red
curry-lemongrass shrimp ($14.99) and steak tenderloin au poivre
($17.99) pastas in favor of more basic fare. In addition to New York
strip ($14.99 for 8 ounces, $18.99 for 12 ounces) and rib eye ($15.99
for 10 ounces and $18.99 for 14 ounces) steaks, we chose the barbecued
chicken half ($9.95) and Southern pecan crusted rainbow trout
($14.99). The steaks were decent, if not memorable, although the rib
eye was too liberally salted. Sweet, vinegary barbecue sauce barely
lifted the chicken above supermarket deli fare.

But the trout was nearly inedible. Not only was the fish almost as
mushy as mashed potatoes under its chopped pecan crust, it was
drenched in a saccharine brown sugar and bourbon sauce that would be
better suited to bread pudding.

All that sugar was put to better use in the desserts, which don't hold
back on the calories. Portions are large and clouds of airy whipped
cream garnish everything from the Belgian waffle hot fudge sundae
($5.95), made in house, to the creamy cheesecake swimming in caramel
sauce ($4.99). Die hard chocolate lovers will be tempted by the
over-the-top ganache cake ($4.99), a slender layer of chocolate cake
layered between two deep layers of dark chocolate frosting, served
with vanilla ice cream, fudge sauce and strawberry sauce.