El Niño warms up Crown Street

If, like so many droves of weary wayward wanderers, you're drawn through the rain and frost to Crown Street's new restaurant El Niño, you'll probably find yourself hoping that it doesn't resemble its weather-pattern namesake (unless you happen to be British, in which case testy, wet, and vague sounds like a delicacy.) Since weather seems to be linked at the moment to the restaurant's name, however, this review is brought to you courtesy of the Weather Channel, your official El Niño information station.

Before the meal: partly cloudy with a chance of rain.

The restaurant, which opened over winter break, hasn't yet attracted a steady crowd. The menu is small and handwrittten, and the decor has a temporary feel. The waiters, with little to do, look bored and cha-cha with each other to the Latin music piped into the dining room. Nonetheless, the menu offers a promising selection of the kind of south-of-the-border fare that you can't get at Baja's or The Whole Enchilada. With a focus on Argentinian and Chilean cuisine, El Niño serves some of the city's most intriguing food.

The appetizers: sunny and warm.

We began the meal with an appetizer of sliced plantains floating in cheese and the oddly dubbed crema inglesia, or English cream. This tropical fruit tastes like the bastard-child of a potato and a banana, alternately sweet and starchy. The dish's presentation cleverly plays up the plantain's contradictions; mel-ted jack cheese com-plements its savory flavor, while the sweet crema accents its banana overtones. The result is a schizophrenic but satisfying treat that we gobbled up in minutes. For drinks, we sipped the complimentary agua, which, to our dismay, tasted like water. Nevertheless, it refreshed us, and brought back memories of the Riviera.

The meal: windy with light rain.

We ordered the cheapest entrées on the menu, the veggie pastel and the arepa con ropas vieja. The pastel--a filling chowder of beans, eggplant, and other vegetables doused in melted cheese--was tasty. Portions are generous, perhaps too generous; by the time we finished the dish we were oversated. The pastel's flavors weren't bold or interesting enough to captivate us for the duration of the eating experience, but the vegetables were nicely cooked and arranged.

The arepa, a corncake topped with shredded beef, was a bit more exciting and no less bountiful. Plantain chips flanked the plate, serving as barges for its stewy sauce. The beef itself was not of the highest quality, though the shredding hid its toughness relatively well. Like any good corncake, this one was bland and hearty. Unfortunately, it stood out a bit too much from the rest of the dish, providing the necessary texture at the expense of the perfect flavor. The dish as a whole tasted dashed together, as if the ingredients had been cooked separately and combined at the last minute. Still, we finished the entire plateful and didn't need antacid.

After the meal: partly cloudy and mild, with warmer weather likely next week.

It helps to remember that the restaurant, like any niño, is still young and impetuous. While the food at El Niño was inconsistent and occasionally dull, the restaurant's offerings are unique and skillfully prepared. El Niño shows plenty of promise, and these reviewers are hoping that sunny skies are in its forecast.

Back to A&E...