By Paul Reidinger

paulr@sfbg.com

A quarter century ago, more or less, a mentory graduate-student type escorted a neophytish undergraduatey type to a Mexican restaurant deep in the Mission District. The restaurant was one of those corner jobs – with its face to a busy numbered street and a perpendicular flank to one of those quiet tree-lined lanes that give the area its villagey feel – that you found and still find throughout the neighborhood. That first restaurant, with its harsh overhead lighting, might or might not have been El Zarape, on 23rd Street at Bartlett; the neophyte was too struck by the spectacle of the server – a Clara Peller look-alike who shuffled to and fro in orthopedic shoes and could easily have been a nurse in some obscure provincial sanitarium instead of a conduit for enchiladas and chiles rellenos – to remember much of the place's name beyond an introductory "El" or "La."

The neophyte, of course, was me, and when I stepped into Velvet Cantina a few weeks ago, I felt a shiver of déjà vu: Was this the place, or at least the space, from that long-ago episode? I suppose I will never know for sure, since memory has a way of growing soggy with time, but we do know for sure that Velvet Cantina's recent opening has brought new life to what had been the long-closed El Zarape. The fancy new sign alone, proclaiming "edibles and elixirs," is enough to remind us that the guard is changing not only at the corner of 23rd and Bartlett but throughout the Mission, and while the interior still has the slightly quaint feel of a Nogales whorehouse, the thump of techno music (which had one of the young chefs bouncing up and down as he tasted the masa from one of the stove-top pots – a good sign) gave notice that Velvet Cantina is run by and for the denizens of the new Mission.

The chef, Russell Morton (was he the bouncing chef?), has a pedigree of some distinction, having cooked at PlumpJack Café and 2223. This experience translates into a menu that includes, but is not limited to, many standards of Mexican restaurants in the United States. Yes, you can have your guacamole and your burrito, but you will also find chunks of Black Forest ham in your quesadilla or achiote-marinated beef in your tacos. There are even dishes whose roots extend beyond Mexico, north to New Orleans (shrimp diablo) and south to Buenos Aires (chimichurri Caesar salad). The subtle sophistication of the menu's composition suggests that Velvet Cantina is a direct successor to Café Marimba, the now closed Marina restaurant (founded by Reed Hearon in his glory days) that brought a rigor about ingredients and a degree of imagination to the foods of Mexico while maintaining an air of festive rusticity in presenting them.

The evidence thus far indicates that, at Velvet Cantina, the concept is stronger than its execution. Some of the dishes are simply excellent and promise a bright future for the restaurant if the laggards can be brought up to snuff. Among the best choices is a fine white tortilla soup ($4.99), an unapologetically spicy chicken-jalapeño broth thickened with masa and laced with shredded chicken – a viscous sea in which a sour-cream empanada drifted like a lifeboat. Another that needs no improvement is the shrimp diablo ($12.99), shelled prawns sautéed with slivers of pepper and onions and served on Spanish rice with a fiery tomato-garlic sauce. Yet a third, chili con queso ($4.99), a tasty blend of cheddar and jack cheeses, tomato, and chili – like a souped-up fondue – delivered the goods too. Whatever else might be said of Morton, he is not afraid to supply some heat.

In the OK category we find ceviche salsa ($5.99), a martini glass filled with baby shrimp in lime juice with cubes of tomato, avocado, onion, and cilantro – good but not special. The Black Forest quesadilla ($6.99), though made with fancy ham and gruyère cheese, struck us as tasty enough but a little dessicated. Salsa fresca and black-bean salad offered some refreshment, but not enough.

Beans, in fact, represent the kitchen's greatest failing – a dismal irony, given the significance of beans to Mexican cooking and their general worthiness as a foodstuff. The black beans served in a heap with the tasty-but-tough achiote steak tacos ($11.99) were punitively bad, as if they'd been boiled to mush in plain water without even a token sprig of herbs or sliver of garlic to relieve the expanse of flavorlessness. The pinto beans accompanying the avocado-cactus enchiladas ($9.99) were no better (the enchiladas themselves were crisp, almost like flautas), and the chickpeas that were supposed to have been wrapped up in the roasted burrito ($10.99) with roasted chicken and garlic and pepper-jack cheese were nowhere to be found, though perhaps this was for the best. Even on the off chance the chickpeas had been good, they would likely have been ovewhelmed, like the rest of the burrito, by the remarkably bitter roasted corn-chili sauce piped over the top.

Fortunately, these sorts of problems are easy to correct. You simmer your beans in some kind of stock, with some garlic and herbs and salt; you taste your roasted chili-corn sauce, even while bopping to the music, and you balance it with some honey, salt, some lemon or lime, until the bitter, sweet, salty, and sour come together in velvety concord.

VELVET CANTINA Dinner: Sun.-Thurs., 5:30-10:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30-11 p.m. 3349 23rd St., SF (415) 648-4142 Full bar MC/V Noisy Wheelchair accessible