Cuisine: Mexican

Entrée price range: $9.50 (two-item combina tion) to $17 (shrimp fajitas)

Ambiance: casual

By B.A. Nilsson

Dinner starts to get exciting when surprises come your way, whether it be a terrific-looking restaurant, an unexpected flavor or an inventive take on a familiar dish. American cooking has a deserved reputation for boringness; only when we entered into a so-called fusion with other Americas—and other parts of the world—did our cuisine once again come alive.

What we expect from a Mexican restaurant typically is an Americanization of Mexican fare, reaching an apotheosis of silliness at the likes of Taco Bell. So it’s the mission of many a post-TB Mexican eatery to drag the cuisine back from the fast-food realm and remind us that there actually can be complexities of flavor. Not to mention a decent burrito.

Azteca has been open for nearly a year, at a Central Avenue space that’s seen its share of restaurants. Business has been increasing, says owner Margaret Meris, especially since their beer-and-wine license came through. And she promises that margaritas and piña coladas will be added soon.

She’s quick to credit the many who have helped her bring this, her first restaurant, to fruition. Even the name, she explains, was a collaborative decision. “My father was American Indian and Mexican,” she says, “and I never got to know him.” She later became much more aware of his history, which led her into an even broader appreciation of Mexican history. Thus the name. “The Aztecs fall into one of those areas of history people aren’t very familiar with,” she says. “So our name should make them think about it. Also, we have ceramic artworks from Mexico on display, and each piece tells a little bit of the story.”

Decor is thoughtful without being elaborate. Two dining rooms are separated by a long hallway with a bar in the middle, above which a silent TV demands too much attention.

Lunch is a bargain, with a burrito (or enchilada, chalupa, tostada, taco, among others) and rice and beans for $4.50. More complicated combos run from $5 to $7.

Those combos also are available for dinner. The two-item plate is $9.50; adding a third will run a dollar more. We sampled a combo with a beef-filled burrito and beef-topped tostada, dressed with the usual array of lettuce, tomatoes and cheese, and served with the ubiquitous rice and beans. Which established an unsurprising pattern. Although the food quality here is far better than many a similar establishment, it’s still assembly-line stuff. Compared to the assembly line at, say, Moe’s, Azteca is a flavor wonderland. But you’ll meet the same flavors from entrée to entrée (until you veer into some of the specialty items).

The fajita quesadilla ($12.50), for instance, makes the same argument even with chicken, adding familiar veggies and seasoning, but finishing it with a more complicated sauce (pico de gallo) within the wrapping. More traditional fajitas, served with wrap-it-yourself tortillas, also are available for $12.50.

Things change when you head for items like tacos on the grill ($12.50 each, a dollar more for a combo), available with any or all of the usual fillings. A number of steak specials include serving the meat with onions, peppers and tomatoes ($13.50), ranchera sauce ($13.50) or alongside shrimp ($15.50).

You can get an extra-large burrito for $12, a four-enchilada combo for $10, pork tips and onions (carnitas dinner) for $12.50 or go all the way for $15 and challenge yourself with a burrito, enchilada, taco, tamale and chalupa. And rice and beans.

Chicken attracts some of the most inventive presentations (all chicken entrées are $12.50). You can get it covered with cream or served with a mole poblano or mole ranchera. The former is what’s best known as a mole—a rich, chocolate-enhanced sauce with impressive complexity—although I chose the latter for my dish, and was served what I suspect is a sweeter, redder sauce. But it complemented the chicken excellently—in fact, the sauce seemed to provide more flavor than the poultry.

Some unusual dishes we sampled included a black-bean soup ($4) that tasted like nothing more than an undrained can of beans that’s opened, heated and served. Appetizers feature familiar items like nachos ($5 to $10, depending upon how elaborate you wish the plate be, and whether there’s shrimp involved), quesadillas and guacamole.

Because we already were served a basket of warm chips with good salsa, I looked for a different guacamole spin and found it in a salad ($4.50) that proved to be an unusual-tasting combo of avocado, mayonnaise and Tabasco, served over shredded lettuce. Too rich to combine with an entrée, so I made another meal out of the taken-home leftovers.

Spinach dip, chile beans and Aztecas dip give you salsa alternatives. We sampled the bean dip ($4) and found a thick soup that easily could have been reworked to flavor the black-bean brew.

The single server working the floor had her hands full when we visited, nearly stranding us without silverware at one point. But she brought an infectious cheerfulness to the evening, an important part of the generally enjoyable experience we took from this visit.