RESTAURANT REVIEW : Cute Is the Word at Cabo

The waiter slipped, and beer and ice water went flying. While he was waiting for the busboy to mop up, he brought catsup to the next table, cockily tossing the bottle in the air a la Tom Cruise, but the cap flew off and a huge red gob arced through the air. He spun around to get another busboy and ran right into a plate glass window.

It was quite a show. I almost felt I owed him an extra tip.

In reality it must have been just one of those ghastly runs of luck that make us all look like fools once in a while, but somehow I’d expect Cabo Cabo Cabo to have a floor show. Over and over what you hear people say as they come in is: “Isn’t this cute?” The pizza oven is covered with colorful Mexican tiles (for that matter, so are the washrooms), and there’s a barrel of peanuts by the door. It’s the sort of place where they give you a cinnamon stick to stir your coffee with.

Altogether, in fact, Cabo Cabo Cabo strongly resembles the Polynesian restaurant that took the location upstairs from it at the Century City Shopping Center about six months ago. At Cabo Cabo Cabo the motif may be Mexican, but there’s the same lively bar featuring extravagant mixed drinks (plus about 50 beers and 40 tequilas), the same big-screen TVs, even the same willingness to work hard on American entrees despite the ethnic motif. I must say the Cabo Burger is a very serious model, at least half-an-inch thick and juicy.

In fact, there’s a lot of eclecticism about Cabo Cabo Cabo, a willingness to put a little bit of coconut in the ceviche (very successful), an unapologetic inclusion of sashimi and pizzas. The pizzas, by the way, include a mesquite-barbecued chicken model with a hint of barbecue sauce under the smoked Gouda cheese, which is rather good. (I wouldn’t say the same of the steak pizza, though, a silly thing to do with chunks of steak.) That corn chowder with little pieces of lobster floating in it isn’t bad, either.

I don’t want to give the impression that there’s no Mexican food, though. The giant quesadilla has a nice dab of hot sauce in it; the tortilla soup--the recipe “given to us by the Chief of the Gucci Indians” (sample of Cabo’s menu prose)--is essentially a bowl of enchilada sauce with chicken and tortilla strips. It’s fun, as are the fajitas (chicken, beef or fish). The carne asada is rather elegant, a steak sliced nouvelle-cuisine fashion and served with a tart tomatillo salsa.

I don’t know why the restaurant boasts about its “super” black bean chowder, though. It’s made with ground meat and onions fried quite dark--perhaps too dark, there’s a lurking bitterness that bothers me. And nobody at my table would touch the ahi tuna. Maybe it was the harsh pineapple-papaya sauce that give it that odd flavor.

There’s a flan (pardon me, Custer’s Last Flan) on the dessert menu, but otherwise by this point Cabo Cabo Cabo has pretty much given up on the Mexican motif. Go American instead and get a great hot fudge sundae and a very good lemon ice (don’t try to eat it after tasting any of the chocolate dishes, though).

Isn’t it cute?

Cabo Cabo Cabo, Century City Shopping Center, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City. (213) 552-2226. Open for lunch and dinner daily. Full bar. Validated parking. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $17 to $52.