The Boston Phoenix
January 29 - February 5, 1998

[Dining Out]

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Kokopelli Chili Company

The quest for great chili will continue, but at least we get a decent margarita along the way.

Dining Out by Robert Nadeau

1648 Beacon Street (Washington Square), Brookline
(617) 277-2880
Open Mon-Fri, 5-11 p.m.; Sat and Sun, 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.
AE, DC, MC, Visa
Full bar
Sidewalk-level access

We don't know much about Kokopelli, the flute player found on pottery images from lost civilizations of the Southwest. Maybe he or she was a trickster figure, and tricked away all the relevant information. Maybe just being from the Southwest is enough to get a chili joint named after you, although, as the menu admits, they usually spell it "chile" on Kokopelli's old turf.

Chili is tricky enough that there are regional variations, and it's trickier still for this kitchen to get right. Kokopelli also seems to have tricked an early reviewer into suggesting it's a place for children. It does have a children's menu, and topological puzzles at every booth, but this is basically a dating bar with "grown-up" dishes that are rather spicy and unusual. What I think is best about the restaurant is neither the chili nor the child-friendliness, but the variety of tequilas and the quality of the basic margarita.

I like it as a bar, and continue wearily on the apparently endless quest for good Tex-Mex food in these parts. (And don't go loading up your word processor about the differences between Tex-Mex and New Mexican food. I'm still looking for either one.) But some people like a bite to eat with their margaritas. For those people, the basic salsa and chips features a good, fresh salsa with plenty of cilantro. The salsa bar, which costs more, has a great variety of salsas, but none I tasted was any better than the basic one. The nachos ($5.95) are strictly for kids, in my view. I don't know why people like untangling a bunch of tortilla chips glued together with cheese to begin with. And the better the cheese is -- and Kokopelli's is pretty good -- the quicker and harder it dries.

A good option if you're hungry is a side order of sweet-potato fries ($3.95). It's a big basket; the fries are crisp on arrival but grow limp after maybe 10 minutes, so jump right in. A vegetarian tamale served as an appetizer ($6.95) is actually two tamales and a side salad, so this could make a light supper for somebody. That would be somebody who likes the idea of vegetarian in general more than the idea of a tamale in particular. There are many vegetarian tamales from Mexico to Peru, but almost all of them are cooked to a solid texture that rivals cheese or meat. This one has a light, crumbling texture and a slightly sweet overall flavor. These nouvelle tamales come with an old-fashioned (i.e., sour) tomatillo sauce, though, so they went down well enough.

The restaurant tries to live up to its name with seven kinds of chili ($3.95 cup, $6.50 bowl, $7.95 on rice or spaghetti; add 50 cents for cheese). I had three on the sampler ($7.95). I'm a fundamentalist, so it was the "Texas Tenderfoot," Albequerque green, and vegetarian for me. I think Kokopelli would do better to pick one style and get it right. The Texas lacked cumin, the crucial ingredient of Texas chili, and was much too sweetened by tomato sauce, though it was all stringy meat (as many Texans would specify). Albequerque green was quite beefy and had some beans, but neither the heat nor flavor of fresh green chili peppers. The vegetarian, which has no real tradition, was reasonably good -- a hot stew of various beans, a little eggplant, and kernel corn. It's possible that the New England style (lots of tomatoes and onions, sweet as spaghetti sauce) will suit local diners; Cincinnati chili, developed in the Macedonian-Greek diners of that city, features sweet spices and is typically eaten over spaghetti, in case you yearn for such a thing.

Kokopelli Chili Co. also calls itself a "Southwestern Grill," and it grills rather well. Fajitas ($12.95 chicken, $13.95 beef) come out on a sizzling platter, but the noise is just the peppers and onions frying. The chicken is sliced from a grilled breast and has a good smoky flavor; again, the cumin is not there, as it used to be when fajitas (which means "belts") were made from marinated skirt steak. But everything else is excellent, and the shaker of powdered chili pepper on the table will do for hot sauce.

No hot sauce is needed on the vegetarian burrito ($8.95), a football-size wrap stuffed with a medley of eggplant, beans, and other vegetables, including slices of jalapeño peppers with the seeds. Experts will tell you that jalapeños aren't especially hot by chili-pepper standards, but they put what they have into an initial explosion that has always impressed me. And if you choose the "three-silhouette" green chili sauce for a topping, this is one live burrito. For some reason, this dish is served with a small square of innocuous cornbread. A grilled vegetable platter ($10.95) is served with side dishes of chilified rice and unspiced red beans. The vegetables are the usual squashes and eggplant and onions and peppers, but topped with a lively, tart red purée of peppers and such.

On to the drinks. Kokopelli has a good list of both bottled and draft beers, and a lengthy selection of aged tequilas. Since tequila originated as a cheap, rotgut spirit made from the common cactus, there is something odd about the idea of aged tequilas, but they are certainly smoother than cheap ones. The margaritas (starting at $4.75, classic or frozen) are properly tart and salty, even though they are served in the large bubble glasses associated with the devolution of margaritas into sweeter, weaker drinks. The sourness and saltiness were designed to overcome the rough edges of traditional tequila, so there is no reason -- other than conspicuous consumption -- to order a fancy tequila made into a margarita. That said, good traditional margaritas are almost as hard to find in Greater Boston as Texas chili is.

Kokopelli does have desserts; of particular note is the mud pie ($4.25), which unites kids and the dating-bar crowd in chocolate ice cream heaven. They also have sopaipillas ($4.25), a pillow-shaped fried bread. The bit with sopaipillas -- neither staff nor menu mentions this -- is to tear off one corner and fill them with some honey. Although this makes a dessert in Brookline, it's served as the breadbasket in New Mexico. Like Indian poori, sopaipillas go well with spicy dishes, and the honey has soothed many a glowing tongue. Also like poori -- and sweet-potato fries, for that matter -- sopaipillas are at their best the minute they come out of the kitchen.

Service at Kokopelli was very good, and the restaurant currently fills up around 7 p.m.; evidently the local crowd has figured out that this is not a family restaurant. A lot more could be done with background music; either the obvious norteño or -- for a trendier ambiente -- the cool jazz they sometimes use at Cottonwood Café would add to the atmospherics. But the key improvement should be either to the chili or to the name. Kokopelli Margarita Co. could be a big winner.


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