FOOD .

Twice Bitten


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Published: Oct 2, 2007

At press time, Cobre, a Puerto Rican/Mexican restaurant that opened on North Broad four months ago, was serving lunch and dinner. It is anyone's guess how long that state of affairs will last. Judging from two recent meals, it's almost impossible to imagine the restaurant succeeding.

Walking into the thoughtfully refurbished space, with its splendidly high ceilings and slowly whirring fans, you feel an almost instinctual need to root for the place. Two blocks north of Marc Vetri's Osteria, Cobre deserves praise for taking a chance on a scruffy block. Sadly, almost everything else about it is either mediocre or an outright catastrophe.

Starting with my server's bizarre decision to fiddle with a computer monitor for five minutes rather than bring promised glasses of water to my table, my lunch visit was more reminiscent of an old episode of Candid Camera than anything else. Some time after taking my order for a chalkboard special, the waitress informed me it was out and suggested a substitute: mofongo with beef. Almost immediately, she delivered my companion a plate of roasted pork. When she did not return with silverware, he had to get up and ask for a fork.

Both of the bar's flat-screen TVs were playing loudly, and one movie gave way to another as I waited for food. Twenty minutes passed. The roasted pork was a culinary wonder: How did the kitchen get the meat so dry considering all the blobs of fat on the plate? And my dishes, at long last, were no improvement.

The alcapurrias, a deep-fried pocket of mashed taro and/or plantain stuffed with beef, was as bland and heavy as an unfired brick. The mofongo, a giant ball of deep-fried plantain seasoned with garlic, was like a one-note grease grenade — and it came not with beef but with pork chunks that seemed to have spent hours in a deep-fryer.

My sandwich was pretty tasty, but instead of chicken, ham and pork, which is what I ordered, my bun came filled with ham and beef.

My dinner visit was a little better, but still gave the impression that the staff is mostly interested in watching TV. Ordering from the Mexican side of the menu, I tasted a negligibly seasoned chicken burrito and rather plain enchiladas. Neither was worth the $10 price tag. It is painful to say it about any place that has the smallest hope of enlivening a dead city block, but between my two meals at Cobre, I have never left so much food uneaten.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)