Carlito's

Mission Hill gets a much-needed hangout

by Robert Nadeau

DINING OUT

Carlito's 808 Huntington Avenue (Mission Hill), Boston (617) 730-5522 Sun-Wed, 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; and Thurs-Sat, 11:30 a.m.-1 a.m AE, DC, MC, Visa, Transmedia Beer and wine Smoking in bar area Street-level access

Carlito's is a completely inauthentic quasi-Tex-Mex cantina that nevertheless is a lot of fun. I would make more of its shortcomings were it not on the underserved Mission Hill stretch of Huntington Avenue. For some reason, this southern fringe of the hospital district has almost no places where you can eat out, and it would be perverse to hope for more restaurants based on the impending gentrification of the Mission Hill housing projects, which will disperse a Latino stronghold.

Lest anyone be misled by the Mexican décor, Carlito's menu has a page on "The Legend of Carlito," which starts in Italy, and the tunes on the jukebox run to country-western. When you get to the ungrammatical listing for "Mucho Bueno Platos," you can be confident that no Mexicans were consulted. The food, though, is often better than what you get at various national Tex-Mex chain restaurants, the cooks demonstrate a good instinct for avoiding canned foods, and the draft Dos Equis is first-class.

One might start with "Tart Cherry Barbecue Chicken Wings" ($5.75), which not only are not Mexican, they're not even barbecued. The eight segments are fried, then glazed with an excellent sauce, and you won't find better bar food under any flag. The hot tamale ($3.75/$8.25 as a dinner with garlic mashed potatoes and "a fire extinguisher") is a serviceable and reasonably accurate chicken-stuffed tamale, though it doesn't live up to its two-chili rating on the menu. (In fact, Tex-Mex tamales are not all that spicy, absent chili gravy, and the phrase "hot tamales" was used by 19th-century street vendors touting the freshness of their product.)

"Six-gun chili" ($2.40/$4.95) actually is that hot, but few will recognize it as chili. What you get is a clear-green-brothed stew of chunks of beef and sliced jalapeño peppers. I've always argued for the classic Texas "bowl of red," without tomatoes; tolerated the argument against beans; and insisted on cumin. This isn't that. I've had green chili in New Mexico, but it wasn't so watery.

A chicken-nacho plate ($5.95) is a mother lode of piled-up tortilla chips, cheese, ground chicken, jalapeño slices, and black beans. A "two-napkin meal," commented one diner. The heaping taco salad ($5.25), with a good dollop of guacamole, is another bargain, even if you don't eat the taco shell (which you probably shouldn't).

Order a vegetarian burger ($6.40), and they ask you if you want your portobello mushroom rare, medium, or well-done! (What the heck? Medium.) The burger had a good smoky flavor from the mesquite grill and the meatiness of the mushrooms. The addition of a few slices of grilled summer squash and onion made for a hefty burger, with a pile of lattice-cut French fries that was big enough for three.

Chicken fajitas ($8.95) also benefited from the grill, but the traditional marinade and the sautéed peppers and onions to stuff into the flour tortillas were missing. An "el guapo" combination platter turned out to be two chicken enchiladas wrapped in excellent white tortillas, lacking only . . . canned enchilada sauce. There were also a couple of fried "pot stickers" stuffed with refried black beans. I like it.

Desserts aren't much. We had both. Fried ice cream ($4.50) is a big softball with a good butter-brickle crust and a little chocolate sauce, in another tortilla shell not to eat. Flan ($4.50) is the cheesy kind, served oddly in a sundae glass with apple sticks on top and a little chop of berries and kiwi hidden underneath.

The bad news: they burned the decaf wicked bad, you have to ask for the hot-sauce caddy, and even with only six people at the adjoining bar, cigarette smoke was a drag in the dining space.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com.

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