Tico’s Cantina tickles, doesn’t thrill

LITTLE ROCK — The Village at Rahling Road has been a blessing and a curse for Little Rock restaurateur Jerry Barakat, who has run at least a half-dozen establishments through the spaces he rents therein over the past eight years.

In the “downstairs” space, at street level, he’s had the Asian-fusion restaurant Jasmine; the world-cuisine Sesame; a Jasmine and Sesame combination; Jerry B’s, a martini bar; and, currently, a worthy high-end steakhouse called Arthur’s.

“Upstairs,” on the back side, was his first Rahling Road venture, Gaucho’s; since then, the space has housed Sesame; Blue Agave, a Mexican/Caribbean fusion; a fusion of Jasmine/Sesame/Blue Agave; and a higher-end Italian restaurant called Amalfi, for which Barakat says he is now seeking a site in the Heights.

Barakat moved Gaucho’s to Shackleford Drive, and Arthur’s seems to be holding its own pretty well. The demise of the others has very little to do with the quality of Barakat’s food, which has always been pretty high, or the atmosphere, or the service, or any of the things that could plague a restaurant. It has a lot to do with location.

In 2001 the shopping center was on the far edge of the Chenal sprawl and it must have seemed like a really good deal at the time, but it has never attracted retail tenants - aside from some offices, there’s just a liquor store; a public library branch and a bank have recently opened on the fringes.

Worse, the center is not visible at all to drivers on Chenal Parkway, either direction, so unless you know it’s there, you wouldn’t know it’s there. The enormous new Promenade at Chenal shopping center across the parkway has meant more auto traffic, enough to require a stoplight at the Chenal-Rahling intersection, but little if any of it has spilled over.

Barakat keeps trying. He has now opened Tico’s Cantina, with a fairly simple but well conceived Tex-Mex menu. Not everything we tried was fun and exciting, but nothing turned us off, either.

Some, if not all, of Barakat’s Italianate touches for Amalfi still work for this concept. The elaborate coral-like chandelier, the faux fireplace and the quasi-marble walls are still there, and so are the faux-mosaic Roman villa portraits, including the one with a pipe through its head, above the large convex bar with copper-tiled walls and the rock-wall fountain.

The granite-topped tables and table-banquette combinations remain, sans Amalfi’s cross-table, not-quite-tablecloth runners. Mariachi has replaced tenor Andrea Bocelli on the sound system. Flat-screen TVs at each end offer sports programming. You can still dine al fresco on the patio.

You get two complimentary salsas for sitting down, a smoky tomato-based one (we suspect there’s a chipotle pepper somewhere in there) and a tomatillo-green chile version, which we got warm on early visits but not on a later one; it has visible seeds and delivers a discernible kick to the palate. They come with crisp, thin, tricolored (well, there was at least one red one and one blue one in our basket) and low-salt half tortilla chips.

Tico’s offers a fine guacamole, chunky, with avocado balanced against a considerable amount of garlic, although we didn’t feel we got enough to merit the $5.95 price tag. The Chili con Queso ($3.95) is a decent yellow cheese dip, with enough spice to keep it interesting but not enough to make us bolt out of our chairs.

Queso Fundido ($4.95) is not supposed to drip, but ours surely did. It tasted fine but it’s basically just a white cheese dip, not a fondue. It comes in plain, chorizo or mushroom; ordering chorizo and mushroom was no problem, but it didn’t come with much of either.

Our favorite dish, by far, was the Broiled Shrimp Skewer ($11.50), firm, tasty, medium size shrimp in a tequila-lime marinade, nicely spiced, with a slightly tangy Mexican rice, refried beans (with lots of - surprise! - garlic but rather soupy) and grilled peppers and onions on the side.

The beef in our Tacos al Carbon ($6.75) was supposed to be, according to the menu, “seasoned, marinated and broiled”; we got chunks of perfectly nice but pretty much unseasoned medium-well steak wrapped in cornmeal tortillas with some tomato-heavy pico de gallo on the side.

We fared much better with our Red Snapper tacos ($11.75). The fish was near-perfectly spiced, tender and moist and our pulled-pork Tacos al Pastor ($6.25), were a little sharply but engagingly seasoned, served almost fajita-like with the sauteed peppers and onions on cornmeal tortillas. There was a vaguely interesting patch of cold black-bean salad on the side.

The tacos were more fajitalike than our chicken Fajitas al Carbon ($9.75), too-big chunks of mildly seasoned chicken on a sizzling skillet with vegetables - not peppers and onions but (blech!) zucchini and squash.

Our four pork tamales ($6.75) came on spread-open corn husks, but the pork inside the soft cornmeal shells didn’t have much flavor and the thin green-chile-and-onion salsa verde didn’t complement it very well, visually or in flavor.

The house margarita ($5; there’s also a top-shelf option) comes in a somewhat shallow-draft glass; it was perfectly adequate, tasty and well-balanced.

Service was very good, except that our first-visit waiter completely forgot about our margaritas and on a later visit, when we asked to change the TV channel from a meaningless basketball game to the World Series, alas, the remote control was locked in the office and not accessible to the staff.

Barakat has just opened a satellite Tico’s at 4720 John F. Kennedy Blvd., North Little Rock, and another is planned for 2501 Dave Ward Drive in Conway. They’re more geared toward takeout with a smaller menu and limited seating.

Tico’s Cantina Tex-Mex Address: Village at Rahling Road, Rahling Road at Chenal Parkway, Little Rock Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-10:30 p.m.-Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sunday Cuisine: Tex-Mex Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D Alcoholic beverages: Yes Reservations: Large parties Wheelchair accessible: Yes Carryout: Yes (501) 821-1814

Weekend, Pages 29 on 11/12/2009

Print Headline: Tico’s Cantina tickles, doesn’t thrill