The Village Bar and Grill has been a part of The Village at Sunriver since the 1980s. But it feels as if it’s brand new. Perhaps that’s because, in many ways, it is.

Beautifully reconstructed with the redevelopment of the former Sunriver Mall a few years ago, it is now a bright and spacious lodge with dark-wood and faux-stone décor elements. A cathedral ceiling soars above the main dining area, while the adjacent sports bar has a more intimate appeal.

Numerous televisions keep football fans happy in that lounge area, while in the “grill” room, three more TV sets play sports but sound is muted in favor of classic rock background tunes.

Food is the emphasis here, however. The restaurant’s ownership team — which experimented with a sports bar in downtown Bend in 2007 and 2008, but wisely sold it as the recession was approaching — has a fine, family-friendly menu that appeals to a broad swath of Sunriver residents and visitors, both midday and evenings.

Service, if uninspired, is reliably efficient. On one of our visits we were slow to be seated, but our servers were speedy about taking and delivering orders and responding to additional requests.

Prices in the resort community of Sunriver always tend to be a little higher than those in Bend, and those at The Village Grill are no exception. On the other hand, they are less over the top than at the resort lodge itself.

Salad and sandwiches

On a lunchtime visit to the Village Grill, my dining companion and I shared a large salad, and each of us ordered a sandwich.

Our praline apple and berry salad ($15.50) was delicious. Candied pecans, sliced Granny Smith apples and individual raspberries and blueberries populated a landscape of romaine, radicchio and red leaf lettuces, carrot and red onions. On top was a chicken breast, grilled and sliced, sprinkled with crumbles of bleu cheese. Balsamic vinaigrette dressing was presented on the side.

My friend had the Village version of a BLT sandwich ($10.50). It had bacon, lettuce and tomato, of course, but the bacon in this case was hickory-smoked, thick, crispy and plentiful. It also included grilled chicken and was served on Texas toast, grilled with garlic butter and dressed with mayonnaise. Accompanying were seasoned fries, served with house-made chipotle ranch dressing.

My mushroom Swiss burger ($13) was ground chuck, cooked medium and served on an egg-rich and lightly toasted brioche bun. Garnished with lettuce, two tomato slices and lots of red onion, the burger was dressed with garlic aioli and topped with a slice of melted Swiss cheese and a generous serving of sautéed mushrooms. It was finished with two long, thin slices of dill pickle, among the best I’ve had.

Rather than fries or cottage cheese, I chose to accompany the burger with coleslaw. It was a nicely balanced serving, matching sweet with vinegar, and neither too dry nor too soupy.

Evening fare

We began a subsequent dinner with an appetizer of lettuce wraps ($14.50). I like the firm, crisp leaves of butter lettuce, but I did find them a little small for wrapping the quantity of food on this platter. Green leaf lettuce might have been a better choice.

Diners have a choice whether they want to wrap cubes of chicken or (vegetarian) tofu. We chose the former, and our meat was delivered on a bed of crispy noodles, sautéed with scallions, water chestnuts and cilantro in a mildly spicy, soy-based dragon sauce. A side of coarsely grated carrot gave us more than chicken to fill our leaves of lettuce. Two dipping sauces (a tart lime ponzu and a sweet-and-spicy ginger peanut sauce) came on the side.

I was glad to have a sufficient portion of those sauces after the arrival of my entrée — ahi tuna ($18.75), seared rare in a sesame glaze and finished with a black sesame sprinkle. The fish was cooked as I liked it. But it needed a little something extra, and following my request, our server confessed that the kitchen had no wasabi.

What? No wasabi? The dipping sauces had to suffice.

The rice pilaf that accompanied was in fact basmati rice (tossed with onion and carrot, seasoned with black pepper) that was blended with yellow curry. The flavors didn’t really mesh with the tuna.

My companion chose a 12-ounce New York strip steak ($26), flame-grilled medium rare. Hand-trimmed, it was a choice cut, but was not as tender as a prime cut might have been. It was served with baby red potatoes that were mashed nearly to a mush with cream and butter.

Both entrees were served with a half-dozen spears of grilled asparagus, thin and tender but with woody ends that hadn’t been cut off before serving.

For dessert, we shared a generous wedge of Mile High chocolate cake ($6.50). One of the evening’s highlights, it was rich and moist, the kind of dessert you want to attack with your fingers to get all the leftover frosting off the plate.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com