Mostly Mexican

Occasionally I'll prepare Mexican food at home, following recipes from Rick Bayless or Diana Kennedy or trudge through the spicy wonders of Southwest impresario, Bobby Flay, who offers wonderful dishes for summer barbeques. Preparing authentic Mexican fare that goes beyond the taco world is a time consuming and audacious process. Getting all the right spices and ingredients is a chore in itself. But when done well, Mexican food is fabulous.

El Rayo, on York and High streets in Portland, attempts to fill the void in Portland. While this eatery has been packed with diners ever since it opened about one month ago, I reserve any high praise for it now even if it appears to be a critical hit--wrongs don't necessarily spell right.

El Rayo is a taqueria, the Spanish word for a taco shop. The term itself originally applied to street vendors selling the Latin version of a hot-dog vendor.

In its guise on York Street, which is nearly impossible to reach with one-way streets and dead ends surrounding this particular locale, the easiest way is to start at Commercial St. and up High Street with a right turn into their parking lot where a former gas station used to be.

The transformation is fun and in keeping with the street food theme. A bunker of a building painted in day-glow colors it works for what it is much like the honestly grim but great Susan's Fish and Chips, which is also in a former gas station where the walls still faintly smell of engine oil.

When I heard that two Portland food veterans--foodaholics really--who specialize in resurrecting the gastronomic dead were behind this venture I thought finally we'll have a real Mexican eatery in town. Another prominent local chef was intending to open up a Mexican restaurant, and she still might, but these two, known always as Cheryl and Noreen, beat her to it.

So what I'm probably most disappointed about is that I was hoping for something more than a taqueria.

Cheryl and Noreen have an impressive record in the Portland area. They started Aurora Provisions and Café, Café Always, then the Portland Lobster Company and the resurrection of the Black Point Inn dining room.

I went to Café Always many years ago during a visit to Portland but I never concluded my meal. We had our first course, and since we had a window table I was able to witness first hand when a squirrel scurried across the electrical wires, got fried, falling to the ground in a blaze and zapped the whole street of power. Obviously the kitchen couldn't function in pitch black conditions. That was my first and last time at Café Always, and I can't help but think of eviscerated squirrel every time I recall the restaurant.

Back to El Rayo, there are some very tasty choices, however, and the food is ripe with authentic flavors. It's all good casual fun for a quick meal partaken at the edge of a stool.

However, while the kitchen surprisingly gets the food out pretty quickly, the process by which your order is taken is tortuous.

You walk up to the cashier who is also the order taker and he handles both tasks very poorly indeed, moving at a glacial pace no faster than a comatose turtle. This results in lines extending out the door not because it's so popular but rather because the system creaks. Why not have two people doing the job: One to take the order and the other to take your money?

Speaking of money, the prices may seem low but they're really not. The taco choices are $3.75 to $3.95 each. Larger burrito dishes are $6.26 to $6.95. One taco offers about as much food as a handful of peanuts grabbed on the go. You need at least two to three to merit a meal, whether for lunch or dinner. Our recent lunch, which consisted of 4 tacos, 2 each, and an order of smoky potato fritters--a bowl of unremarkable 6 tater tots--for $3.95, a bottle of Mexican beer and a very good lime Ricky (served in such a small glass that there's hardly enough to wash down a solitary taco) added up to nearly $30 for two, hardly cheap.

By comparison, we recently went to Paciarino, that splendid Italian trattoria that's opened up on Fore Street, and for the same price had a wonderful lunch of superbly prepared pasta, delicious bread and olive oil and a glass of wine each for about $30, too.

Still, what's served at El Rayo is done fairly well and the preparations have authentic flavorings. On two visits I've only tried the tacos, but there are burritos filled with chicken, beef or pork; quesadillas, with the usual fillers and a lot of other small dishes that sound enticing.

Perhaps, in time, they'll get their footing and expand, with a sit-down dining room$doesn't have to be fancy$and serve full meals with the sort of Mexican fare that we're not used to, true regional Mexican cooking. Or maybe this time that other Portland chef just might do it first.