Animal Dreams

When I talked to him by phone last week, McCarthy stressed he's still working on staffing and décor, but you can't argue with the food he's serving. It's true, our well-intentioned waiter was nervous, our plates sat too long after dinner, and the look of the small room is still evolving (there's a bar at one end and a cozy arrangement of candle-lit tables at the other; it will eventually seat 50), but the effect is unfinished, not unpleasant. Whatever — we just wanted to know if the tequila shrimp ($12) had survived the move. We ordered them, plus two new appetizers: queen conch ($12) and the nightly special, barbecued lamb ribs ($12; McCarthy has since put these on the permanent menu, with a slightly tweaked sauce).

McCarthy's shrimp/corn cake is such a luxurious mouthful, so simply composed, a perfectly balanced, nuanced collection of flavors and textures. The corn cake is loaded with chipotle butter, for one thing. The crustaceans are fleshy, smoky, laced with pungent alcoholic fumes of tequila. A spicy tomato salsa tempers this desert warmth with its sharp, cold acids and adds a paint blot of reds and greens. It's just wonderful. Baby, you're not getting older; you're getting better.

We couldn't get enough of the fatty, tender barbecued lamb ribs either. McCarthy had given them a dry spice rub, grilled them, and sent them out with an earthy sauce of reduced vegetables, smoked paprika, cumin, chili powder, and a bright undercurrent of fresh mint.

As for the princess conch, the chef had grilled it in bite-sized pieces with togarashi spice mix and tricked it out in a pretty party dress of citrusy yuzu beurre blanc and a drizzle of three-vinegar syrup. And that's about the best you can do for a sea snail I've never been entirely convinced is real food (unless it's chopped up in a fritter or a chowder). The conch was chewy/tender, and the sauces made sense with it, but this isn't an appetizer I'm going to go to pieces over. Maybe it's just me.

I'd been dying to try the trendy Hawaiian fish kampachi. Kampachi sounds like an ideal seafood; if you've lost faith in farmed fish, this relative of the Japanese yellowtail offers hope for a healthy, sustainable alternative. It's farmed in deep oceans at up to 200 feet (the wild version, called Hawaiian hamachi, is toxic and unsafe to eat); it's mercury- and PCB-free; it's full of good fats; it's raised on fish meal and organic wheat without antibiotics; and it tastes terrific raw, as sashimi, or lightly pan-fried, as I had it at Armadillo ($26, a special). McCarthy says he'll eventually bring in his sushi cooler and offer sashimi or ceviche, but I'm already plenty happy with these buttery seared fillets. And the homemade tartar sauce he serves it with totally rocks.

Our entrée of sliced duck breast had been cured with chilies and sugar, seared, sliced; and served with a hearty white bean and bacon salad. The duck breast was so beautiful, so pink and firm and fresh, I thought it lacked for nothing (one of us summed it up as "a little bland"— maybe it could have used an extra spoonful of that dried cherry glaze.) I loved those supersized, starchy white beans as a foil. If you've grown disillusioned over the dry, stringy bird served everywhere, this one will win your heart back.

Locally caught yellowtail snapper ($25) smothered in tomatoes, wild mushrooms, roasted peppers, garlic, and ginger is as superb as ever. It's a meal that has plenty of complexity in its smoky, meaty, fruity accents, but it never compromises the delicate marine flavor of our homegrown piscine celebrity.

And then, of course, there was the single plate of chocolate fritters, bright little luscious bubbles of bliss, fried chocolate and cinnamon paté choux, in a sludgy bath of dark chocolate fudge alongside a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream. Will we ever learn to order one for each of us?

That's how we found our old 'Dillo: delightful, calming, familiar, twisty, fun. This hardscrabble little animal has trotted gamely along the highway for almost 20 years while hulking corporate rigs and star chefs in snazzy convertibles whooshed past. Most of them are long gone: They ended up out of gas or upside-down in a ditch, wheels spinning. I hope McCarthy's creature will settle down now. I'd like to have those fritters to fight over for another couple of decades.