Galerias Gourmet

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Maybe Quinta Belina was just ahead of its time.

I mentioned that late (and lamented) restaurant a few weeks ago in a review in which I decried the pervasive Mexican-food-is-defined-by-Velveeta attitude in the valley and welcomed the arrival of a spot that defines itself as “avant-garde” Mexican as a breath of fresh air, creativity and authenticity. And here we are again; although this one uses “gourmet” instead of “avant-garde” in its name, they’re twin sons of different mothers, or at least kindred spirits.

The restaurant is Galerias Gourmet, an offshoot of a Seattle spot. Its menu notes that its owners make their “gourmet” distinction in large part through their uses of sauces, and I wouldn’t disagree. Your standard enchilada sauce? Not to be found. Velveeta? Hah!

But before we get to that, it should be noted that Galerias has even given great consideration to the names of its dishes. Thus we have the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the Salvador Dali (who actually was Spanish instead of Mexican, but I wouldn’t split hairs), and a lot of names most of us would have to look up, but who all appear to be artists as well. Whether the individual person’s art has any bearing on the dish wasn’t apparent to us — open-to-interpretation, eye-of-the-beholder and all that — but we didn’t find any melting timepieces in the Salvador Dali ($14.95), although I guess there’s a parallel nature in that it was somewhat fanciful.

What we did find was, yes, an exquisite sauce, based on guava, rose petals and herbs. I’m not big on flowery flavors, but there was some restraint used here; it was as if the chef had presented a single rose rather than shoving a whole bouquet of them in our faces. The guava flavor faded into the background, serving mainly as a support to the more dominant rose, the whole of it cloaking slices of pork tenderloin that had been cooked just a little too long and were consequently on the dry side. This was, I might add, the only shortcoming — and it was a minor one — in our dinner.

The sauce on the Francisco Toledo ($13.95) was a little more commonplace, although not for a Mexican restaurant. Chicken was the principal ingredient in this dish, which had a pineapple-coconut sauce (with lots of big chunks of pineapple), its sweetness tempered slightly by the use of onions and jalapeno, the latter adding a very slight kick.

Both dishes were accompanied by steamed rice.

A how’d-they-do-that moment sprang up because of the Aguacate Relleno ($7.50) starter. A nice, perfectly ripe avocado had simply been peeled and pitted, then stuffed, as the name implied, with shrimp. What was a mystery was that the shrimp were exceptionally firm, but not at all rubbery. There were a few mushrooms and a bit of Oaxaca cheese — which were welcome but didn’t surprise us, as they were on the menu — but also a huge pile of mixed field greens with a light but creamy dressing, which did. This could serve as an entree.

As, of course, could the Queso Fundido ($7.25). This was the only dish we tried that’s easy to find in most Mexican-American restaurants, but true to form, it was better than most, the cheese stretchy and warm, the oil not separating from it, the flour tortillas on the side (we could’ve chosen corn tortillas) warm and almost fluffy. Faced with a choice of chorizo, mushroom caps or cactus strips, we chose the last, which were both in large number and perfectly crisp-tender.

Service throughout from a management type and a male server was pretty good, but a female server was more clumsy, dragging the bottom of her water pitcher through one of our dishes.

The decor was both more elegant and more restrained (which is much the same, I guess), with subdued colors and not a pinata or sombrero in sight. The menus were quite unusual, composed of what looked like silvered picture frames, which were a little awkward but still charming.

But I’d be remiss not to point out that Galerias Gourmet does have a few similarities with more-conventional Mexican-American restaurants. We were, for example, served chips and two smooth salsas — one green and mild, one red and more fiery — but there was some herbed cheese as well. (We smeared the cheese on our chips but noticed that another table got a few slices of bread in their basket, which would’ve been nice.) There also are enchiladas and tamales in case you have someone in your party who just can’t help himself (although, true to form, they’re more creative than the norm).

I’d suggest that the next time, you just leave that person home.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews are done anonymously at Review-Journal expense. Contact Heidi Knapp Rinella at 383-0474 or e-mail her at hrinella@reviewjournal.com.