RESTAURANT REVIEW : At Long Last, the Tacones Have Arrived

The coming of the tacone, a hand-held, cone-shaped, crisp tortilla shell filled with a variety of ethnic ingredients, has been much bruited in Los Angeles for years.

In 1993 chef Fred Eric, then at the Lipp on Melrose (now closed), announced the imminent opening of L.A.’s first tacone stand in the restaurant’s parking lot. To this day, Eric claims to have invented the tacone as a form of “handable food” to be sold from a cart. He planned to fill green cones with grilled chicken breast and salsas, red cones with skirt steak, blue corn cones with swordfish. Then, Eric became involved in opening Vida, his restaurant on Hillhurst, and his cart never materialized.

Early in 1995, chef John Sedlar of Abiquiu revealed his plans to open a chain of fast-food stands selling tacones filled with barbecued chicken, shrimp with wasabi sauce, and turkey with stuffing and cranberries. Sedlar denied appropriating Eric’s idea. Tacones, he claimed, had been around for a long time: A company in Santa Cruz made them back in 1974. No matter: Sedlar’s plans never materialized either.

Then, several months ago, I received an impressive press packet. “Get ready for TACONE tm,” gushed the cover letter. These “tasty, hand-held receptacles” were debuting at the Century City Shopping Center in February. An enclosed color photograph showed a blue corn cone filled with yam, cranberry sauce and chunks of turkey, a red cone with beef and grilled onions, and a bright green cone with fish and a snarl of thin onion rings.

The creator and founding partner was a lawyer named Craig Albert. And the chef was . . . Joachim Splichal of Patina! Albert, it seems, had approached both Fred Eric and John Sedlar first.

So. Are these edible receptacles worth all the fuss? The first ever TACONE tm stand sits right at the entrance to the food court at the Century City mall. It’s a tiny, bright to-go counter, with pretty design elements like little Mexican bingo images painted on pieces of wood. A couple of clear glass vats hold Citrus-ade and purple Voodoo Punch. The 10 different tacones can be ordered either with the fried cone or soft flour tortilla. Fillings range from “Limbo” (jerked shrimp and rice) to “Pompeii” (Caesar salad). Waiting to order, I see a man stroll by eating an ice cream cone, and I think, “In a minute, I’ll be eating a savory version of that.”

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Something, however, is not right. First of all, a drink, one side dish and one tacone cost us more than $10 apiece--a lot for fast food, however gourmet.

Then, when our order is ready, we get a plate of food, not a “handable” item. Fillings fill the plate, and the cones sit idly by at jaunty angles and look far more like decorative horns of plenty or toy megaphones than any handy, edible food receptacle. There are also lots of tortilla chips on each plate. Furthermore, when we do scoop salmon-flecked sushi rice filling back into a lipstick-red tacone to eat it like a Ben and Jerry single dip, it’s, well, weird. Gratuitous.

None of the seven tacones I try remotely resemble the handsomely styled photos in the press packet: Most fillings are a chopped-up mishmash. The “Spa” tacone does feature slices of grilled vegetables dressed with feta cheese but the vegetables are undercooked, the effect insipid. The “Martinique,” black beans with slow-cooked shredded beef and rice, is actually delicious, a good and spicy Caribbean-inspired rice dish with or without a cone. The “Pompeii” boasts a terrific Caesar salad, but the cone is irrelevant. And the “Pilgrim’s” filling, shredded turkey suspended in heavy mashed potatoes and topped with one daub of unsweetened cranberry puree and one daub of yam puree, is monstrously bland and inexplicable--who wants to eat such mush?

Two side dishes, in fact, are the best things on the menu: wonderful sweet potato fries and sweet/salty plantain and vegetable fritters.

I may be wrong, but I don’t exactly see tacones sweeping the nation.

* TACONE, Century City Shopping Center and Marketplace, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 574-8177. Open for lunch and dinner 7 days. No alcohol served. Visa and MasterCard accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $7-$23.