Guac Stars

On my next visit, with Bob, Jeannie and John in tow, I suggested we each order one of the house specialties, which meant that Bob, the dolor en el asno in any group, immediately ordered a beef-and-bean burrito. It's what he wanted, damn it, and it tasted great. The sophisticates among us got fancier grub. Jeannie nibbled on a plump pink fillet of salmon, which Clodfelter had lightly grilled, then brushed with a sweet, orange glaze and baked inside a fresh banana leaf. I was grateful that John shared a bit of his puerco con chorizo, slices of moist pork loin rolled around spicy chorizo and served with a topaz-colored mound of mashed sweet potatoes drizzled with a punchy ancho mole.

My own dinner was Maya's carne asada, a thin and surprisingly tender slice of marinated rib eye with wedges of buttery avocado and warm flour tortillas. It's the only dish named for the restaurant's imaginary namesake, who isn't a real person at all -- Lisa Alvarez just liked the sound of the word Mayan. Customers tend to ask the servers whether Lisa or Kelly Alvarez-Clodfelter is the mysterious Maya. "Kelly gets picked out as Maya a lot more than I do," Lisa says.

Will the real Maya please stand up? Her signature dish, the carne asada, is a light, uncomplicated meal, but leave it to me to sabotage a potentially low-carbohydrate supper by overindulging on chips, guacamole and an order of the lusciously spicy appetizer of camarones -- shrimp sautéed in dried chiles and toasted garlic.

The idea of eating dessert on top of everything else caused my stomach to rumble, so I played demure until the arrival of the supple, silken flans that Jeannie and John had ordered. "Are you sure you don't want a bite?" Jeannie asked. She scooped up a spoonful of amber-colored caramel sauce and waved it in front of my nose.

Like a bull tormented by the scarlet rustle of a bullfighter's cape, I lost my head and grabbed a spoon and took a healthy bite of the smooth, cold custard. It was so divine that I didn't notice that I had spilled a trail of caramel sauce down the front of my sweater. I looked ridiculous, but sometimes it's the restaurant's customers, not its owners, who behave as if they're in a sitcom.

Call me Charlie Mertz and pass the flan.