Restaurant Review: 1308 Cantina

Today, Houstonist submits to you a Tex Mex thought experiment: What if you were to take a decent Tex Mex restaurant, say, Spanish Flower, dim the lights to 15% of their original brightness, spiffy up the wait staff, add a valet service, and stock the restaurant with pretty patrons? Here are but a few of the curious results: your otherwise humdrum Saltillo tile takes on the mysterious hue of an exotic Italian slate. Usually quaint photos of the city of Guanajuato are instead seen as rich metaphoric murals that invite you to debate the contradictions of Mexico's beauty. Cheap, cosmetic plywood arches around the booths transform themselves into the architectural flourishes of a hidden hacienda.

Indeed, dimming the lights usually amounts to a sort of beer goggles for restaurant patrons. Fortunately in the case of 1308 Cantina, the restaurant actually is a bit cute and funny and has a nice personality (though the above physical description holds, and the arches were clearly made out of plywood). Unfortunately for the Houstonist, however, those wily kids over at the Houston Press published their review of 1308 Cantina on the very day of our eating there last week. You win this time, non-Robb Walsh guy!

Anyway, the approach of the restaurant works in this case, mostly because the variation from the Tex Mex canon is enough to keep the eating experience more or less novel without becoming silly or pretentious overly silly and pretentious. What's the other pitfall for a mid to upper-range Tex Mex restaurant? Some of them are delusional enough to the point of believing themselves to be completely Mexican.

1308 Cantina thus straddles the line adequately with a grill-heavy menu that pleases the average Tex quite nicely, while sprinkling in enough carnitas in the menu for a nod from the Mex crowd. For the former, decent (but not show-stopping) fajitas, shrimp, and baby-back ribs dominate, backed up by some pleasant cameos such as Jalapeno sausage and some tasty but incredibly frustrating to eat grilled quails. Meanwhile, the paradigm of the true Mexican nationalistic dish, Chiles en Nogada, makes an appearance, but with a tender and delightful pork filling instead of ground beef. It mostly works, smothered with a river of walnut sauce that's perhaps a touch too sweet for our own tastes.

In contrast to this earnest gesture at traditional Mexican cuisine, the entrees come with a side of beans as usual and ...paella rice. Seeing as how tapas and whatever are slowly becoming trendy distractions for the metro in all of us, the concept of paella with enchiladas isn't too mind-boggling these days. The white folks in the restaurant seemed to dig it, in any case.

You know what they always say: "You can't spell '1308 Cantina' without 'Cantina'!," and the bar here certainly does take a decent crack at supporting the image given off by the restaurant. What's the easiest and most popular way to give a Tex-Mex bar a boost? You guessed it--make the margaritas all fancy-like! And this they do, giving patrons the cherished opportunity to pay twice as much or more for a margarita made with a variety of premium tequilas. In a welcome change of affairs, the Cantina offers a pomegranate margarita on the rocks as a cute little twist: it keeps a bit of the sour of the original while adding a subtle amount of new fruitiness--without devolving into another liquid Jolly Rancher drink for the ladies.

Overall judgment? The place gives the Tex-Mex genre a nice little kick in the pants, especially for those who want the scenery to change without having to take huge risks with the food.

1308 Cantina
1308 Montrose Blvd
713-807-8996

Photo: flickr user Homesick Texan