The Brooklyn Papers / Gregory Cross

Appetite for destruction: At Pacifico restaurant in Boerum Hill, the rustic, candlelit restaurant has a vast amount of outdoor seating which is enclosed with large, heated tents in cooler months.

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Is there a cuter, quirkier, more endearing restaurant than Pacifico in Boerum Hill? Just off Smith Street, set way back from the Pacific Street curb, the eatery lures diners with its gaily-colored lights and askew sign, like a sea nymph beckoning ships.

The first space you enter is a makeshift room with comfortable tables and large metal heaters that radiate warm-to-the-bones heat. Walk further inside, and the restaurant’s dining room reminds one of the kind of big, cozy space common in New Mexico - all golden tones with a candle lit, Western-looking, metal chandelier, a long wooden bar where people hang out talking, and, in the center, a hearth with a big, ember-throwing fire right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. It’s a room that could inspire a writer to sit beside the fireplace and begin the novel they’ve dreamed of creating.

If only I could end this review there.

In this space that promises the heartiest of soul-warming meals, comes the kind of white-bread, vanilla gringo dishes you’d find in a pseudo-Mexican restaurant in a Midwestern mall.

Am I being too harsh? Not when the best thing I can say about my dinner at Pacifico is, "I liked my pomegranate margarita."

To start, we ordered "hot" salsa and "wimpy" salsa and guacamole with chips. When the waitress placed the little bowls down, she explained that neither salsa was hot, just different mixtures.

Oh.

The "hot" salsa, a blend of chilies and tart little fruits called tomatillos, had some heat but no flavor; the "wimpy," a mix of chilies and chipotle peppers, had neither. Guacamole, desperately in need of salt and lemon, was helped somewhat by toasted pumpkin seeds.

Straying far from the border, I ordered a roasted beet and grapefruit salad topped with cotija cheese. How tasty it sounded with the sweet, earthy beets and tart grapefruit sections; how lovely to see the ruby vegetables beside the pale pink fruit.

How wrong I was.

The beets were fine, the grapefruit sections, fine, too, but together - nothing. Add the cheese, fried into a hard wedge, and dressing with neither sweetness nor acidity, and sorry folks, but this salad is a lesson in what not to do to innocent produce.

And, sigh, the grilled pork ribs with chipotle glaze. Try finding a better-looking pile of meat. And by pile, I mean enough big, black, glistening ribs to feed a frat party. In fact, the serving sizes of most of Pacifico’s dishes are generous to a fault. Large is expected; heaped so high that cutting into a dish sends the contents sprawling is not the way to go. Gnawing on those ribs reminded me of being on laughing gas at the dentist’s office. I was aware of the meat’s jaw grinding texture and lack of flavor, but their taste barely left an impression.

Up for more? One entree - a Chip Shop meets Chi-Chi’s hybrid - featured three limp tacos filled with fried fish and soaked with a ridiculous cabbage salad. The other dish was a nicely fried stack of chicken in a crisp crust drizzled with roasted chile sauce, that did little but dampen the chicken’s batter. Both dishes came with a side of gummy grilled corn on the cob sprinkled with cotija cheese.

Dessert left me despondent. Because I was dining with a chocoholic, we ordered the chocolate cupcake with chocolate mousse and Mexican chocolate sauce. Why would chef Dan Hall offer the chocolate overkill dessert in a big, deep mug with the cupcake shoved down at the bottom, too-sweet mousse on top and chocolate sauce spilling over the side of the cup and onto the plate? After dipping the soup spoon in (a long parfait spoon would have helped), I had to root around the bottom of the cup to get a bit of cake leaving my hand covered with sauce.

A train wreck.

A fluffy Key lime pie wasn’t bad.

I have to ask Jim Mamary, who opened Pacifico in August 2003, if you have a place that is appealing enough to draw a crowd despite the abysmal cooking, imagine how glorious it would be with good food?

Pacifico (269 Pacific St. at Smith Street in Boerum Hill) accepts cash only. Entrees: $10-$13. The restaurant serves lunch Friday through Sunday and dinner daily. For more information, call (718) 935-0545.

©2005 Community Newspaper Group