I’m sure Kit Carson, the legendary pioneer pathfinder of the Old West, would be amused to find his name attached to the showcase restaurant at Central Oregon’s original destination resort.

But after a major spring renovation of the Sunriver Lodge restaurants (under the direction of the Destination Resorts & Hotels management group), the resort’s flagship restaurant, formerly known as The Meadows, is now Carson’s American Kitchen.

Food and beverage changes, part of a five-year, $50 million program that extends to guest rooms and golf courses, don’t stop with Carson’s. The Owl’s Nest lounge has been replaced by the Twisted River Tavern. The lobby area between Carson’s and Twisted River has been christened The Dining Room, with an ambiance and menu (think charcuterie and ceviche) all its own.

A reinvented swimming area beside the lodge is home to the uber-casual Spotted Frog cafe and bar. The Merchant Trader gift shop continues to offer light cafe fare on the ground floor, and the Sunriver Beer Garden barbecues brats and burgers on the patio beside the Meadows Golf Course.

Executive chef Travis Taylor and lodge chef Fabrice Beaudoin have their hands full with these establishments, as well as with the resort’s other restaurants: The Grille at Crosswater, Zeppa Bistro at Caldera Springs and McDivots at The Woodlands.

High prices

The report card on the new lodge restaurants, which opened Memorial Day weekend, is mostly a good one. Certainly the atmosphere, with views across the golf course to the Cascade Range, is wonderful. Service keeps pace; if it’s even possible, Carson’s has too many servers and bussers working meals.

In two meals at Carson’s — dinner and breakfast — the food was terrific. Paradoxically, my lunch at Twisted River, which shares the Carson’s kitchen, was a disappointment.

But the one real shortcoming of Sunriver Lodge dining is value. Even in a fine-dining establishment, I cannot justify paying $16 for a breakfast burrito, $20 for a hamburger (albeit one topped with a duck egg) or $23 for fish and chips.

I understand that resort clientele may expect to pay a little more for meals than the general public. Indeed, if they don’t want to travel a mile to the restaurants in the Village at Sunriver, they have no other choice. But other destination resorts in Central Oregon are not so pricey. Curiously, Carson’s dinner entree prices (mostly in the $30 to $40 range) are not out of line with other fine-dining establishments in the region.

Dinner time

My companion and I began our dinner at Carson’s with “popovers,” a version of British Yorkshire pudding. A delightful alternative to ordinary heated dinner rolls, these light, airy pastries were soaked in butter, which they didn’t really need to begin with.

The appetizer list looked so delicious, we wound up sharing three. The watermelon salad was a perfect summer dish, light and refreshing; large chunks of melon were served on a bed of greens and ladled with a wonderful lemon-raspberry poppy-seed dressing. This is one recipe I need for my home kitchen.

Crab cakes were excellent, with minimal filling beyond the crab meat itself. The breaded crust was crispy but thin, allowing the seafood flavor to dominate. An aioli dip could have been a bit spicier. Tomatoes and Chinese parsley provided garnish.

Green pole beans were seared until “blistered,” then ladled with a thick, Romesco-like sauce of red peppers and hazelnuts. A sprinkle of shredded Parmesan cheese and sea salt finished the vegetables, cooked just past crunchy.

Salmon and duck

As an entree, my friend had to try the Atlantic salmon seared with herbs and butter. It was perfectly cooked, served with garlicky spinach and mashed potatoes blended with a hint of lobster. But neither she nor I loved a side of very unusual gravy, a “dark chocolate barbecue sauce.” Served with a few bay shrimp, it was heavy with Worcestershire that made it taste more like a steak sauce.

I preferred my pan-seared breast of Muscovy duck, which came with a medley of small vegetables and a side of a more complementary cherry-chipotle sauce, at once sweet, smoky and spicy.

My friend loved a dessert option that enabled her to choose her own ice-cream sundae. Our server brought a selection of candies, nuts and sauces to top vanilla ice cream served in a mason jar. While the jar wasn’t practical for eating, the dessert was a treat.

Morning meal

Although breakfast prices shocked us and coffee cups ran empty before they were refilled, we thought both of our breakfast dishes were excellent.

My companion chose the Oregon Bounty Benedict, which was far more than two poached eggs on an English muffin. It featured three varieties of wild mushrooms, kale, spinach, tomatoes, shallots and garlic with lightly truffled Hollandaise sauce.

My Fall River Skillet was a vegetarian mishmash of scrambled eggs with artichoke hearts, spinach, red bell peppers and tomatoes, along with feta cheese and a sizeable portion of garlic.

Tavern fare

In fact, garlic is a recurring theme at the Sunriver Lodge. It was especially prevalent when we dined in the Twisted River Tavern: Even before our food arrived, we found ourselves almost suffocated by the smell of garlic fries being delivered to another table.

We sampled numerous small plates. Our favorite was the grilled Angus beef burger, served with fries. Cooked medium, it was dressed with an ale-based cheese sauce and bacon-flavored aioli, along with lettuce, tomato, grilled onions and pickles. The crowning glory was a fried duck egg, its only negative being that the yolk ran and made it difficult to pick up the burger without getting exceptionally messy.

Among other choices, my friend liked the half-dozen duck nuggets, but I thought the heavy breading on the deep-fried duck was too much. They were served with a nice chipotle ketchup.

Deviled eggs, their yolks blended with Sriracha and sprinkled with tobiko (flying fish roe), were not as spicy as we had anticipated. Perhaps a subsequent order delivered to another table, with refilled yolks much more orange than our yellow yolks, was spicier.

A salad of chopped red and golden beets, tossed with goat cheese, could have used a little more balsamic dressing. Crispy fried Brussels sprouts, served with large chunks of bacon, had more charred leaves than hearts of sprouts. A cup of thick coconut curry soup, with rice and vegetables, was pasty and unappealing to us both.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com

(Editor’s note: This article has been corrected. The original version misidentified The Living Room and the Village at Sunriver. The Bulletin regrets the error.)