RESTAURANTS : Southwestern Cuisine L-I-V-E-S at El Torito G-R-I-L-L

Contrary to rumor, Southwestern cuisine hasn’t begun to fade, if the overflow Sunday night crowd at Fashion Island’s El Torito G-R-I-L-L is any indication.

El Torito G-R-I-L-L, you probably remember, is the very restaurant that started this craze here in Orange County. David Wilhelm, who has since gone out on his own and opened a conglomerate’s-worth of restaurants around here--Kachina, Bistro 201, Barbacoa and Zuni Grill, to say nothing of a Kachina Grill in downtown Los Angeles--was the major force in the concept of upscaling your basic El Torito. Five years later, with Wilhelm long gone, this place is still big-time fun.

From outside, the restaurant looks like one of those beach bungalow hotels along the Mexican Riviera, a languid series of pink adobe structures cast against the blue skies of Newport Harbor.

Inside, expect a crowd and plenty of noise. This is a sprawling, low-ceilinged restaurant where the art of conversation has been reduced to every man for himself. From outsize bar to large dining areas, it reverberates with sound.

There is a shopping mall kind of authenticity to this place, a packaged, well-planned look you can’t really argue with. The sky-blue napkins, pseudo-Aztec paper place mats and Oaxaca-style rugs make you wonder whether you’ve wandered into a National Park restaurant in the Four Corners area. If only this place were a little quieter.

Certainly, no one is going to argue with what comes out of the kitchen. It doesn’t hurt being immediately plied with steamy-hot flour tortillas fresh from a revolving metal griddle--eye-catchingly located near the door--which replicates the stone comal on which Pueblo Indians once cooked these beauties.

These tortillas are a real reason to come. Eat them with quemada salsa, a mysteriously murky mixture of mesquite-grilled serrano chiles, onions and tomatillos, and they become a savory snack. Smear them with honey butter spooned out of tiny ceramic crocks, and they taste like Sunday morning pancakes. Either way, you win.

The menu is complex--you could call it positively unwieldy--but there is a handy glossary of Southwestern terms on the back page. This is a good idea, not only because it saves asking the waiters a whole lot of questions, but because it is delightfully instructive. I mean, how many people know that an ancho is a dried poblano chili with an applelike flavor, or that epazote is a wild green with a resinous, oily aroma? Read all about it.

A couple of holdovers from the Wilhelm era are standouts on the appetizers list. The taquitos are thin, crisp cylinders of corn tortillas rolled around minced duck, but what makes them really interesting is the presentation. They come six to an order, dribbled with a colorful array of sauces, white (sour cream), green (tomatillo) and red (jalapeno barbecue sauce)--edible Diego Rivera murals, if you will.

The tamalitos may be tame in comparison, but they lose little in the way of appeal. One of these little tamales is made from soft, sweet yellow corn, the other from grainier blue corn fortified by that tasty minced duck. Both melt in the mouth.

The signature dish here is guacamole, prepared table-side. Think of this one as a Caesar salad of the ‘90s: ripe avocado mashed with good things like basil, cilantro, red onion and fresh salsa. It’s wonderful eaten in gobs on the blue and yellow corn chips served alongside, and even six people won’t finish one order.

You’re not always on firm ground with the appetizers, though. The chile relleno , for example, is an awkward preparation. The chile is rolled in a dry almond crust that peels off like wallpaper, and the sweet spicy papaya relish alongside is mushy. And the queso fundido is a mess. It’s basically jack cheese baked with chorizo and proves that oil and oil don’t necessarily mix any better than oil and water.

Before you get to the heavy hitters, there are terrific soups to try. Tortilla soup, full of shredded chicken, strips of hard corn tortilla and abundant lime juice, tastes almost like something from Thailand. Fire-roasted tomato soup is a rich, smoky puree of tomatoes with avocado and cream, like some kind of south-of-the-border tomato bisque.

I’d bypass the antojitos (burritos, soft tacos, etc.) in favor of the nightly specials advertised on a paper insert page. The lobster fajitas are pricey ($15.95) but worth it--big chunks of sauteed lobster with sweet pepper, onion, tomatoes and mushrooms, all in a zippy jalapeno butter sauce.

The carne asada is pretty swell, too. It’s beef pounded thin and mesquite grilled with an ephemeral crust of pepper, garlic and achiote (if you don’t know what that is, check the glossary). I’m wild about the side dishes served with this dish, too: broiled Anaheim chile, a crock of smoke-flavored borracho sauce and a crumbly sweet corn cake.

Of course, you can always fall back on the better-known dishes, if only because they are good values. The obscenely fat burritos are stuffed with things like mesquite-grilled steak or chicken or a mixture of shrimp and lobster in a tomatillo butter sauce. Soft tacos get similar treatment, although the adventurous can have theirs filled with sea bass rolled in almonds.

The desserts may be a bit derivative, but a couple of them are fun. The idea for chocolate rellenos was lifted directly from Southwestern godfather John Sedlar (of St. Estephe restaurant in Manhattan Beach); they’re corn crepes filled with a pleasantly non-intense chocolate mousse. There’s a version filled with banana mousse, too.

My personal preference runs to the homemade coffee ice cream with fresh strawberries. I like desserts that have staying power, a quality that this Southwestern thing is obviously not lacking.

El Torito G-R-I-L-L is moderately priced. Appetizers are $3.95 to $8.95. Soups and salads are $2.95 to $8.95. Chef’s specials are $4.25 to $15.95. Mexican and Southwestern specialties are $6.95 to $14.95.

EL TORITO G-R-I-L-L

951 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach, and 633 Anton St., Costa Mesa.

Newport: (714) 640-2875. Costa Mesa: (714) 662-0798.

Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, till 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

All major cards accepted.