Southwest in Every Direction

The 16th-Century Spanish adventurers who vainly searched the American Southwest for the fabled lost cities of gold may have been inspired by a misunderstanding.

There certainly was a language barrier between these guys and the locals who gave them directions, and what they may actually have been told about was not cities of gold, but of golden caviar.

You might reach that conclusion, at any rate, by reading the menu at Cilantro’s, which offers an appetizer of chile corn crab cakes with golden caviar and sour cream. Golden caviar--and crab, too--certainly was beyond the reach of the Indians who developed the original Southwest cuisine. But the point of the new Southwest cuisine, handled very well by this immensely popular restaurant on the eastern edge of Del Mar, is to achieve a Southwest-style effect by jumbling almost any ingredients with one or a few traditional staples.

The menu is, by and large, as striking as the dining room, in which wood, stone and metal surfaces are cleverly woven into a sophisticated environment. Appetizers are listed as tapas (snacks), and two or three could be ordered as an alternative to a formal entree. In addition to the crab cakes (which were tasty enough, but not very different from the classic Maryland version), the starter list offers oysters baked under cilantro pesto; blue corn nachos with black beans, salsa and cheese; grilled skewers of shrimp or chicken first soaked in a spicy marinade, and a most unusual queso fundido .

This last varies considerably from the typical Mexican dish, and bakes a round creamy goat cheese in a sharp puree of Romaine lettuce, pungent herbs and pine nuts.

Baskets of hot, homemade tortillas arrive throughout the meal; oversized and light, these might be greeted critically by aficionados of the genuine Mexican product, but they are quite good. Many other extras are available at a price, including jalapeno relish, a basket of blue corn tortilla chips, sweet potato chips with fruit salsa, a relish of black beans and papaya and a pile of onion rings hotly seasoned with red chile.

The entree list is relatively brief but by no means lightweight. It opens with grilled salmon seasoned with chipotle chilies, garlic, oregano and cilantro vinaigrette, and moves along to a spit-roasted chicken rubbed with hot peppers, a grilled rib-eye steak doused with a sauce of roasted tomatoes and poblano chilies, and fajitas of beef, chicken or shark.

The roast duck with a slurry-like sauce of pureed dried cherries and chilies takes the duck-with-fruit sauce theme in a delicious new direction. There is great subtlety to the hot-sweet sauce, and the bird itself is roasted carefully to an extremely juicy finish.

The “Rio Grande” lamb chops similarly undergo a careful grilling; these gain a slight edge from a cilantro-based “pesto” and are garnished with a suave, slightly creamy succotash that adds chopped bell peppers and onions to the usual corn-lima bean combination.

A chile relleno stuffed with smoked chicken, oyster mushrooms, spinach and cheese looked to have been sprinkled with confetti, thanks to the relish of corn and minced peppers; the effect was teasingly hot and rather savory.

The kitchen prepares a selection of desserts daily and serves them in generous portions--these tend to be very sweet, probably as an antidote to the spiciness that characterizes so many of the dishes. The choice recently included white chocolate cheesecake, profiteroles drenched with both caramel and chocolate sauces, and a flavorful cherry-apple crisp garnished with scoops of excellent homemade ice cream.

CILANTRO’S

3702 Via de la Valle, Del Mar

Calls: 259-8777

Hours: Lunch served weekdays, dinner nightly

Cost: Dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $40 to $70. Credit cards accepted