Tex-Mex In Fremont -- El Camino Sidesteps The Slathered Cheese Approach To South-Of-The-Border Fare

May 26, 1996

John Hinterberger

BETWEEN RUSH HOURS at El Camino. The lunch trade has drifted into Fremont and beyond. There's still an hour to go before the crush starts lining up for dinner.

Still the dining room is busy. A midafternoon party? Not quite. It's a wine tasting. The group is the combined waitstaff from El Camino and the Triangle Tavern across the street. Both places are owned by wife-husband team Alice Hughes and James Weimann.

"Our wine sales have been ebbing a little recently," manager Auzie Oxford is saying, and suggests that knowledge of product is fundamental to sales of product. Translation: drink up - but slowly, judiciously.

Lurking in the back room, I order a duck tamale and a house specialty, the Smoked Jalapeno Steak Sandwich ($6.50).

If wine sales were in slow retreat at the two Fremont joints, they were about all that wasn't at high tide. El Camino is booming and has been since its opening three months ago.

An intriguing question might be: "Why?"

Weimann and Hughes arrived in Seattle in the fall of '91 from Chicago and opened the Triangle the following spring. "The Triangle was running like a clock," Hughes said, "and we were looking for something else to do. We'd been going down to Mexico getting some ideas, and when we came back we looked around Seattle and no one else was doing what we had in mind."

That turned out to be big, big margaritas (which may be why the wine sales went south) made with fresh-squeezed lemon and lime juices, Sauza Gold Tequila, Triple Sec, a splash of simple syrup, some ice, all vigorously shaken and served in a brimming 14-ounce beer glass; along with a cross-cultural Tex-Mex menu - ranging from El Paso to Vera Cruz - crafted and modified by chef Mary Clarke, who used to sling upscale veggies at the Cafe Flora in Madison Park.

Weekend breakfast is eclectic and fun (it begins with the Yoo Hoo Waffle Breakfast at $5.25), includes two kinds of tamales, Juarez-style red chile enchiladas; typical (but excellent) Huevos Rancheros ($6.75) with beans, eggs, chorizo, sweet potatoes, red chili sauce and toasted flour tortillas, and even a traditional Eggs Benedict (also $6.75) served with a Southwest variation - over cornbread - with mashed potato pancakes and fresh fruit.

My choice at lunch would be the Rock Shrimp Quesadillas ($6.95) made with cilantro paste, mixed Mexican cheeses and substantial, hand-shaped corn tortillas. El Camino gets raw-mixed masa dough daily (from La Mexicana in White Center) and shapes its own tortillas to order. Because they are relatively thick (sort of like an ambitious tortilla bulking up to become a slab of polenta) the cornmeal flavors sings through.

The four hot triangles come with a romaine salad (topped with toasted pumpkin seeds and maybe too much crumbled cheese), a small tub of tomatillo sauce and a scoop of very citrus-fruity guacamole - a simple but effective puree of avocado, blanched yellow wax chilies, lemon and lime juices, instead of the usual dominance of garlic, onion and salsa.

The Smoked Jalapeno Steak Sandwich ($6.50) is available at lunch, on the midafternoon and late evening bar menus. Flank steak is marinated in chipotle chilies, grilled and served thickly sliced, cold and rare with red onions, cilantro, lettuce and (optional) fresh chilies on a hot, toasted Grand Central "pillow roll," slathered with avocado. They're accompanied by a tub of house-made barbecue sauce that seems more Tex than Mex, yet doesn't clash as roughly with the guacamole as one might anticipate - although I'd be hard-pressed to have to explain why not.

In any case, chef Clarke said: "We go through a ton of them."

At dinner, you HAVE to start with the Baked Chile Relleno ($4.75). Don't be put off by the menu description of "very, very spicy . . ." It's not. This is one of the best appetizers in Seattle. Piquant, yes. Tonsil-searing, no.

A large, green poblano chili is roasted and peeled, then stuffed with a blend of three Mexican cheeses (Cotija, Queso Fresca and Asadero) bound with melted jack cheese, and enlivened with minced chipotle chilies, red onion and green tomatillos. It's garnished with sour cream.

What's missing (but not lacking) is, of course, the typical deep-fried egg batter, which so often tastes like an anemic omelet gone astray.

Chile-Bathed Cod in a Corn Husk Wrap ($9.75) is just what it says it is, although the menu also ascribes it to Toluca. I've been to Toluca (and eaten there) and what wrapped cod is doing at an elevation of 10,000 feet is steep conjecture. Nevertheless, the dish works well, and the red chile adobo sauce informs the seafood fillets emphatically.

Chicken Enchiladas with Mole ($12) come in made-to-order cornmeal crepes, a nice touch, and covered with a blanket of mole.

The Chipotle BBQ Baby Back Ribs ($12) also got high marks. Marinated and roasted to fall-off-the-bone tenderness, they are served with a quite smoky and very hot chipotle barbecue sauce, coleslaw, red beans and rice.

An ongoing dispute at present is whether the chocolate cake or the coconut flan is the better dessert.

John Hinterberger, who writes the weekly restaurant review in Tempo and a Sunday food column in Pacific Magazine, visits restaurants anonymously and unannounced. He pays in full for all food, wines and services. Interviews of the restaurants' management and staff are done only after meals and services have been appraised. He does not accept invitations to evaluate restaurants. Harley Soltes is Pacific's staff photographer. -----------------------------------------------------------------

# # 1/2 $$ El Camino, 607 N. 35th St. Breakfast ($5 to $7) 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday only. Lunch ($4.50 to $7) 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily. Dinner ($8 to $13) 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; until 11 p.m. Friday, Saturday. Bar menu ($4.50 to $9.75) afternoons and until 2 a.m. nightly. Lounge, full liquor. Major credit cards. Smoking in lounge only. Reservations: 632-7303.