After spending a week trying to sell my car online to people who channel exclusively through Wayne Brady’s Let’s Make a Deal, I decided I deserved a reward for not committing a felony. So I headed to the new-and-improved Paddock, now owned by the former culinary queens of Lion & Owl.

I sat at the empty bar because people annoy me, there are fewer of them there, and it’s the best seat in the house to see and hear the tea brewing behind the scenes. As a food reviewer, I’m a nosy bitch.

The service was exactly what I needed after wading through the CarSoup crowd, where “What’s your lowest price?” is apparently how people say hello. I was greeted and seated like royalty despite looking and smelling very much like a peasant. Thankfully, this is Eugene, where showing up slightly feral barely raises an eyebrow. Chill out, I love my beautifully hairy Eugene.

I started with the Sesame Boulevard cocktail: miso, sesame-infused rye, Campari, vermouth and bitters. I didn’t need more bitters in my life, but whatever. I needed this drink.

It was fantastic. Nutty, balanced and just bitter enough to taste like a week of selling shit online. I was especially fond of the badass block ice cube. Nothing says “adult self-care” quite like staring into a giant cube of ice while wondering if you’ll meet a romantic stranger at the bar. Since it was late and my juju was off, the odds were approximately zero.

Next came the fried goat cheese with rhubarb chutney and grilled toast. The goat cheese was fabulous. The toast situation, however, felt a little aggressive. Where I come from, half a piece of toast is grounds for a fistfight. Fortunately, I piled that little bastard so high it collapsed under the weight of its own responsibilities. Delicious, despite the bread shortage.

Then I tried the bouillabaisse, which turned out to be more of a cioppino. If your goal is to start a World Cup brawl between France and Italy in a single bowl, this is an efficient way to do it. Instead of the delicate, saffron-infused broth you’d expect from a classic French bouillabaisse, this leaned toward the hearty tomato base of an Italian-American cioppino.

Although it was packed with seafood (clapping for the chef), it was also salty enough that I gave up on the broth after a few spoonfuls, fished out the seafood and left the rest behind. A proper bouillabaisse lives and dies by its broth. This one didn’t. My mother would’ve sent me to bed without dessert for wasting soup broth, but what’s done is done. It wasn’t bad. It was just having a high-sodium identity crisis.

For my main course, I ordered the kale Caesar with fried chicken and the seabass with capers, lemon, butter and parsley.

You can tell a lot about a restaurant by its Caesar dressing. Once I ate at a place that used straight-up mayonnaise out of the jar as Caesar dressing, and that’s the kind of behavior that earns Americans the Italian chin flick. Yes, Caesar salad was invented in Mexico, by the Italian genius Caesar Cardini. You can unclench now.

The Caesar dressing at The Paddock was fucking outstanding. Good Caesar dressing walks a tightrope between richness, umami and zing. This one never lost its balance. The buttery, crunchy breadcrumbs were spot on, the fried chicken was perfectly cooked and the parmigiano reggiano, though applied with a somewhat stingy hand, was the real deal.

My one struggle: The salad leaned heavily on raw curly kale. Give those stubborn leaves a proper chiffonade and a lemon olive oil massage, or mix in some tender baby kale. Either would’ve reduced the amount of cud-like chewing required. But credit where it’s due: they de-ribbed the kale. Small victories.

The seabass swims onto the menu under “Bigger Plates,” though the only thing bigger was the price tag. A lonely, overcooked fillet arrived adrift in a butter sauce heavy with capers. Without enough acidity to rein in the richness and salt, the capers became the “bigger plate.” A delicate citrus herb rice would’ve helped balance the dish, while fewer, finely chopped capers would’ve distributed those little bastards’ briny punch more evenly.

And of course I had dessert. I didn’t survive my online-selling circus to skip dessert. Enter the warm butter cake with rhubarb sauce and whipped cream. Meh. It was perfectly edible, but a little dry, and the whipped cream appeared to come from a dispenser. For me, nitrous-whipped cream always gives off big Cool Whip energy, even when it’s the real thing. It wasn’t a bad dessert; it just wasn’t a crescendo.

Now for the ambiance. The restaurant has undergone a top-notch makeover. I remember the old Paddock, and this transformation is an absolute wow. Then there’s Wallace, the massive taxidermy giraffe head mounted on the wall. Wallace looks like he wandered in from Ernest Hemingway’s hunting lodge and somehow ended up presiding over an eccentric cigar lounge. The sun no longer rises for poor Wallace.

The vintage baking pans, on the other hand, tell a much warmer culinary story, and I love them. They whisper Fannie Farmer, the badass who taught America to measure ingredients properly. More Fannie vibes, less Hemingway might suffice.

Overall, I’d happily return. The service was genuinely warm, the prices are the new higher end of “fair,” and the space is a remarkable upgrade from the old Paddock. After the CarSoup circus, The Paddock restored enough of my energy to get back in the ring.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a damn car to sell.

Salty Chef Rating: 🧂🧂🧂 (2.75 out of 4 Salt Shakers)

The Paddock is open 3 pm to 10 pm Thursday through Monday at 3355 East Amazon Drive, 541-606-0626, WelcometothePaddock.com.

Find The Salty Chef in the Weekly every month. The identity is under wraps so restaurants have the best chance of serving an honest meal instead of putting on a show. The Salty Chef has a lifetime of experience in professional kitchens across multiple states, is a native Oregonian, and someone with a healthy appetite for great food, sassy opinions and calling it like they taste it.