Berta’s Offers Mixed Media of Latin American Flavors

An attempt to represent the cuisine of two-thirds of a hemisphere on a single menu may seem as fruitless as an effort to condense Shakespeare to a representative line, although, for the food-oriented, Falstaff’s self-pitying “stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish,” uttered in “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” may seem appetizingly pithy.

If the cuisine of Latin America seems at least a hair too broad to be definitively presented by a single restaurant, the new Berta’s Latin American Restaurant in Old Town at least takes a good stab at it, aided by the common features in a cooking idiom that stretches from Tijuana and El Paso all the way to Tierra del Fuego. The complementary Spanish and Portuguese overlays on established native cuisines did create certain unities among these cooking styles, a fact that makes Berta’s efforts seem less implausible. In effect a smorgasbord of Latin dishes, Berta’s menu primarily hits high points by offering national specialties from Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Guatemala, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru. Colombia is represented solely by the coffee, while Uruguay, Paraguay and other lands get short shrift.

The one offering that really unifies this menu is the tortilla espanola , the flat potato omelet of Spanish cooking that Berta’s serves as both an appetizer and an entree. The restaurant localizes this somewhat by siding it with a Mexican tomato salsa, which the Spanish certainly would not do, although salsas or similar highly spiced condiments (the Peruvians use dabs of a condensed chili paste of great potency the way that some Americans pour on the ketchup) are widely employed in Latin American cooking.

Several dishes are hotly spiced, and rightly so, especially the ensalada de naranja , a common Brazilian salad of oranges and red onions doused with a red pepper-heated (and it is hot) vinaigrette.

Also hot, and again served as an appetizer, the Peruvian papas huancaina put both potatoes and the classic Peruvian, cheese-based huancaina sauce to especially good use. Americans may have trouble considering potatoes an appetizer, but these soft-crisp wedges of red potato smothered in a smoothly fiery sauce are in fact irresistible. Although cottage cheese frequently forms the basis of huancaina sauce at Peruvian restaurants in this country, Berta’s menu specifies feta, a sharp Greek cheese that may come closer to the type used in Peru. Another Peruvian snack, the antecuchos de pollo , pairs marinated chicken cubes with garlic mayonnaise and is good, if less interesting than the potatoes or the orange salad.

There is an inevitable sense of mixed media to a menu that offers side orders of tortillas, green and red salsas and black beans as accompaniments to dishes drawn from cuisines that may not know them. However, the basket of hot tortillas and bowl of mild but tasty green salsa that arrive with the menus as an opening snack are welcome. Black beans accompany several dishes; in cases in which they do not, those who fancy these beans can order a large bowl on the side and should not be disappointed by the smooth richness of flavor.

Black beans and rice team in the least expensive entree, the vegetarian casado , a Costa Rican dish that decorates the two main items with sauteed bananas and side garnishes of tortillas, tomato salsa and cabbage salad, this last item used to lighten the effect of the overall meal in exactly the same way Americans pair cole slaw with deep-fried fish.

Jalapeno pepper adds a difference to a Guatemalan dish of shrimp sauced with tomato, onion and garlic that, with slight variations, is common around the Caribbean. Ginger, another strong seasoning and one that you would not readily associate with Brazil--it must have traveled there from Dutch Guyana and the West Indies--adds an Asian flavor to the Brazilian tallarines vatapa , or narrow pasta ribbons tossed with a spicy sauce of crushed peanuts, chilies, coconut and tomatoes. If the name tallarines rings a bell, it should, since it is a modification of the Italian tagliarini , a narrow style of fettuccine. Of the entrees sampled, this one registered at the lower end of the scale. Served extra-hot upon request, the vatapa sauce also is available over a plate of assorted seafood.

The Mexican-style pollo en chipotle , a grilled chicken breast hidden under a sea of green sauce made from tomatillos, smoked jalapenos and cilantro, again was serviceable, but not as enjoyable as a couple of the other entrees; the meat was cooked to the dry stage. Chicken repeats in Mexican mole sauce, in the spicy aji di gallina (flavored with annatto seeds and almonds) and with the same huancaina sauce that does such wonders for the red potato appetizer.

The bigger guns on the menu would seem to be the pastel del choclo and the estofado del cordero , both Chilean and both excellent. Recognized as one of Chile’s leading dishes, the pastel del choclo looks something like an Andean moussaka or shepherd’s pie and tops the national version of picadillo (a meat hash common in variations from Cuba to Argentina) with a sweetened, absolutely delicious corn souffle. The Chilean style of picadillo , particularly choice, enriches the spiced ground beef not just with the usual olives and raisins but with chopped hard-boiled eggs. The estofado , or lamb stew, is described by the menu as in a “wine cream sauce,” and while neither of these ingredients is particularly noticeable, the end result is rich and savory, and endowed with a sweet spicing that almost makes it seem curried.

The dessert list inevitably offers flan, creamy enough and pleasantly demure after the strongly flavored entrees, as well as a spiced semolina pudding with red wine sauce that may be more of a novelty than a really enjoyable sweet.

Fans of the old Emil’s, which, most recently, was no longer operated by Emil, will remember the premises now occupied by Berta’s. Blessed with its own small parking lot--which helps in Old Town--the restaurant serves guests in the small, cozy front room of a modest former dwelling. The lace curtains that have hung through several regimes continue to give the place a homespun warmth.

BERTA’S LATIN AMERICAN RESTAURANT

3928 Twiggs St., Old Town, San Diego, 295-2343

Meals served 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily

Entrees cost $$5.50 to $11.75; dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $25 to $50

Credit cards accepted