Tex/Mex comes to Ballard: Warm setting, hot choices

A big old wooden wagon wheel leans against the wall; propped on top of it is a lone star. Chili peppers and cowboy hats dance across the plastic-covered tablecloths; calaveras cavort above the range, animated skeletons strumming guitars around a campfire.

You're sipping a Shiner Bock straight from the bottle, dipping blue corn chips into nopalitos salsa and waiting for a plate of enchiladas with rice and beans. The twanging country tunes get your feet all fidgety, itching to trot the two-step. That's when you know for sure, pardner, you aren't in Ballard anymore.

Welcome to Austin ... Cantina, that is, where the margaritas have attitude but the waitresses sure don't. You'll even get a smile from El Jefe himself — and maybe a Texas-style amuse bouche to boot, like the sample of jicama, radish and orange slaw handed out one night.

From behind the homey, cluttered kitchen counter, brawny chef/owner Jefe Birkner can eyeball the whole restaurant — and does. An alert host, he meets, greets and mingles with ease, making sure patrons who must cool their heels at the front door are apprised of their progress up the wait list.

Once seated, you will, by and large, eat well, especially if you steer toward tacos or enchiladas. The do-it-yourself tacos are served with corn tortillas and "Texas caviar," a nice salad of black-eyed peas, corn and bell pepper that needs longer steeping in its garlic-chile vinaigrette. Enchiladas come in pairs, saucy, plump bundles wrapped in corn tortillas and lightly topped with a melt of Mexican and mozzarella cheese. Both items come with a choice of four fillings: chicken mole, Texas pot roast, Southwestern pulled pork and a vegetarian calabacitas stew — not to mention a pile of rice and beans.

Texas pot roast translates as compliant nuggets of beer-braised beef in gravy pungent with garlic, chili and tomatillo. It tastes great with guacamole that owes its lively personality to Serrano pepper, cilantro and tomatillo in the coarsely mashed avocado.

Guacamole isn't the only condiment that stands out from the norm. Bits of nopales (cactus) add a gelatinous quality and intriguing green vegetal dimension to a base of fresh tomato, cilantro and onion. Exuberant apple chutney embellishes pulled pork, contributing to a blaze of sweet, tart heat kindled by barbecue sauce that offsets molasses with the spark of chiles. (Not hot enough for you? A shelf holds hot sauces ready to fan the flames.)

The chutney also is a boon companion for empanadas, calzone-like crescents made with plantain that taste not unlike deep-fried, cheese-stuffed banana bread. A dab of searing chipotle cream alleviates the leaden quality of the pastry.

Chipotle, or smoke-dried jalapeño, is a strong flavor that can easily overwhelm a dish. It's used deftly here, where it's dusted on prawns and calamari, mixed into mashed potatoes and even baked into chocolate cake. In every case but the squid (where it seems heavy-handed), the earthy heat speaks up just enough to bring out the best in a dish.

Camarones Mojo de Ajo, prawns sautéed with garlic and chipotle, exhibit a rare succulence finished with a squirt of fresh lime at the table. The smoky spice more aggressively seasons mashed potatoes, bumping them up to a level where they can compete on a plate of chicken-fried steak and heady gravy. The thin, nearly fork-tender beef wears a crisp jacket any fried bird would covet. I found the country gravy too heavily herbed, but not so my hungry companion, who begged to differ as he mopped up every trace with the last of the spuds.

Other "substantial sides" include rice and beans, in varieties that frequently change. One night, small white navy beans were simmered in the same sweetly delicious sauce that moistened the pulled pork, while cumin tinted the fluffy rice. On a busy Saturday night, the white board was amended while we waited for our table: Red beans and green rice gave way to black beans and red rice. Perhaps the kitchen was caught short: The rice that night was so undercooked it was crunchy, though the black beans rippled with alluring autumnal flavors of clove, coriander and allspice.

The chili is beanless, the way they like it in Texas. "No beans. No distractions," the menu insists, but I found the thick layer of sour cream and onion on the small bowl plenty distracting and too much of an impediment to reach a stew sorely lacking salt.

Nor did desserts provoke the sort of yeehaws they should. Only flourless chocolate cake found favor, a pinch of chipotle boosting the chocolate's complexity. But banana pudding, layered with 'nanas and Nilla Wafers, proved dense and stodgy instead of soft and seductive. Burnt caramel made for an unpleasantly bitter flan; noticing we'd hardly touched it, the waitress removed it from the bill.

As we sidled through the crowd to the front door, nobody actually said, "Y'all come back now, hear?" but you could feel the warmth in their good nights, as we skedaddled out of Austin's door and back to Ballard.

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com