Joe Kline / The Bulletin The dining room starts to fill up during dinner at the east-Bend Jacksons Corner.

Here’s a disclaimer, of sorts: I recently hired a personal trainer to help me shed some pounds. There are hazards to being a restaurant critic.

Besides increased exercise, I’m making a special effort to watch my diet. To that end, I am closely monitoring my carbohydrate consumption — potatoes, pasta and so forth — especially in the evenings.

Jackson’s Corner isn’t a lot of help in this regard. The popular restaurant has added a second location on Bend’s east side, near St. Charles Bend and Bend Memorial Clinic in the part of town where I live. I am often drawn to the spacious, family-style restaurant, which serves three meals a day seven days a week.

My regular dining companion, fortunately for her, doesn’t have the same dietary limitations as I do. So while I focus on meat and greens at supper-time visits, she is able to enjoy the wonderful pasta plates produced by the large open kitchen.

At a recent dinner she partook of a mushroom pancetta dish, the aroma of which I could barely resist. I allowed myself a taste of the crimini mushrooms and chunky Italian bacon, blended with flat noodles, garlic, shallots, marsala wine, cream and Romano cheese. She also had a special salad of mixed greens tossed with roasted carrots, pistachio nuts, feta cheese and house-made cardamom vinaigrette. She was a lucky woman.

A ‘yes-taurant’

Palmer Noble, manager of the east-Bend location, heard my carb concerns. I expressed to him my disappointment that I found nothing I could eat on the dinner menu, save one of several salads offered. Everything else was pasta, pizza or sandwich.

To his credit, and that of his staff, Noble made every effort to improve my experience. “We like to think of ourselves as a ‘yes-taurant,’” he said. He suggested a sandwich without the bread, for instance. He offered the hanger-steak entree with melted leeks but, whoops, that’s available only on Fridays.

I finally settled on a daily small-plate special. The blackboard description — “warm kale salad, Calabrian chilies and brioche simmered in house-made broth, topped with shaved Manchego cheese” — sounded wonderful. The Sparrow Bakery brioche, delicious though I knew it would be, could easily be separated from the rest of the meal.

Alas, the bread, not the kale, dominated the dish. A sort of deconstructed salad, it featured crouton-like cubes saturated in the savory broth. It was not what I was looking for.

I enjoyed the steamed kale with mild, imported Italian chilies, but I was glad that I had also ordered a side of house meatballs. Plump and delicious, three of the savory treats were simmered in a moderately spicy marinara sauce. My appetite was satisfied.

Luncheon choices

At lunch, with less concern about carbs than I have at night, I ordered a pizza from among nine choices. For $14, I had expected a small individual pizza; instead, I got a 12-incher, with a yeasty crust and a topping of mushrooms and chicken sausage, mozzarella cheese and a back-of-the-house marinara recipe. I’ve had better pizzas, to be sure, but pizza is pizza, and I’ve had far worse. What’s more, the leftovers provided two more lunches.

The best part of lunch was a Thai salad. A blend of spring greens with cabbage and scallions, it was topped with peanuts, sesame seeds and a curry vinaigrette that gave the greens an Asian accent.

My companion was less thrilled with her winter kale Caesar. The curly leaves were very dry, despite a distinctive Caesar dressing made with no eggs but plenty of anchovy paste. Topped with a thinly sliced chicken breast, it also had croutons and a sprinkle of shredded Romano cheese.

Best at breakfast

I like Jackson’s best at breakfast, when its espresso bar gives me an injection of caffeine to stir me into sensibility.

On my last visit, I followed my excellent coffee with pulled pork and eggs — a braised pork shoulder with house-made barbecue sauce, roasted red bell peppers, caramelized onions and two over-easy eggs upon a bed of skin-on house potatoes. Served with a thin slice of toasted baguette with fresh blueberry jam, it carried me until dinner.

My companion ordered the light “Classic” breakfast of two eggs with a side of Redmond Smokehouse sausage links, and accompanied it with French toast made from brioche and topped with whipped cream and maple syrup. Everything was perfectly prepared.

Community feel

The new Jackson’s Corner is at once very different than, and much the same as, the original at NW Delaware and Broadway. It certainly is larger, seating about 100 diners in a bright, open, custom-built space in northeast Bend. But it maintains a cottage-like intimacy and a true community feel in its spacious surroundings.

Few Central Oregon restaurants are as family-friendly. Young children often make new friends in a toy kitchen area in the heart of the dining room. A concrete floor assures that accidental spills leave no lasting damage.

Founding owner Jay Junkin and managing partner Aaron Christenson opened the new Jackson’s Corner on Nov. 5. It stands at the corner of Neff and Medical Center roads, just west of 27th Avenue, and shares a building on Cushing Drive with a new Cafe Yumm, which had its own grand opening on Jan. 12.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com