We Want <i> Mora</i>

Los Angeles’ Bermuda Triangle is that confusing mid-city patch where half a dozen major streets come together in a maddening welter of honking horns, where the best way to reach your destination is to point the opposite way from where you think you want to go. Sometimes it’s fun to stand around a while and watch motorists make four or five passes before they discover how to get to the freeway. Sometimes, one suspects, a motorist or two must get sucked into the vortex, never to escape at all.

Until the ‘20s, the Bermuda Triangle was a swamp, a natural catch basin for the sluggish streams that now flow beneath busy streets, at what was then the western edge of town. After that, it was about the last part of mid-town to be taken over by fast-food stands and strip malls. As recently as a couple of years ago, it was home to a musty concentration of Mexican bars and creaky dog and cat hospitals; a lingering slice of old L.A. Eventually, of course, the Triangle succumbed to that inexorable process that grinds memories into KFC outlets. Only the snarled traffic remains the same.

To get to El Caserio, which is a swell Ecuadorean restaurant on the Triangle’s northern rim, you veer onto a street that seems like the logical continuation of Beverly Boulevard but is really a western spur of Temple and turn left before Virgil through a stream of cars rocketing off the 101. El Caserio is in a strip mall that also contains a basic, extremely popular Peruvian restaurant that must outdraw it five to one. (There are a lot more Peruvians than Ecuadoreans living in Los Angeles.) El Caserio, which fancies itself a high-style caffe , all slick surfaces, soft lights and cool Andean music, may be the only serene spot in the neighborhood . . . if you ever find it.

Whether because of its finesse or because of its blend of lush, tropical coastal flavors with the Spartan earthiness of indigenous Andean cuisine, Ecuadorean cooking tends to be among the most delicious of South American cuisines, sophisticated and subtle, alive with garlic, citrus and spice. The cornerstone of the Ecuadorean kitchen is the fresh-chile sauce aji (pronounced ah- hee ), whose tart, fiery taste accents Ecuadorean dishes the way the taste of smoked chiles sparks Mexican food and the saltiness of fish sauce does Thai. El Caserio’s aji is spicier than most, juiced up with onion and fresh tomato, and when the restaurant can get the native Andean chile, it is one of the best salsas imaginable, spooned straight over big, puffy white-cheese empanadas or over the fresh-corn Ecuadorean tamales called humitas .

The first thing you should know about El Caserio is that the fruit drinks are among the best in town, icy, foamy glasses of tart guanabana or naranjilla juice and such that are quite refreshing on a hot day. The nicest of all is mora --mountain blackberry--juice, which is violent purple and which has the strong, complex vanilla/berry taste of young red wine drawn directly from a new oak barrel. Since El Caserio’s food is pretty salty, you’ll probably go through a couple of glasses at least.

There is a spicy, wonderful goat stew, sweet and concentrated, seco de chivo ; a similar stew of chicken; a nice version of the Peruvian dish lomo saltado , which involves strips of beef sauteed with onions and French fries, among other things; and a fine lentil stew, menestra , that is served with a thin, grilled steak. The shrimp dish sango de camarones revolves around a strange, thick sauce made with ground plantains and peanut butter that is probably unlike anything you have eaten before, and undoubtedly an acquired taste.

As far as South American food is known at all, llapingachos are the most famous Ecuadorean dish, what pupusas are to Salvadoran cooking or nacatamals are to Nicaraguans, the stuff that gets emigrants and former Peace Corps volunteers all weepy-eyed. Mashed-potato patties stuffed with melt-y cheese, laminated with a fried egg and served with a pile of roasted pork, llapingachos are nursery food with a pedigree, less crisp at El Caserio than at other Ecuadorean places in the Southland, and not necessarily the most exciting food unless you daub it with a whole lot of aji .

The chuchucara combination, a great, surreal corn fiesta on a plate, includes piles of boiled hominy, dense-textured popcorn and crunchy kernels of toasted corn--along with an Ande of salty, spicy roasted pork riblets--which is served as a dinner for one but seems more like a party platter for six. Get the leftovers wrapped up to go . . . you never know how long it might take to find your way back home.

El Caserio

309 N. Virgil Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 664-9266. Open Thursday-Tuesday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Closed Wednesdays.) Cash only. Takeout. Lot parking. No alcohol. Dinner for two, food only, $12-$18.