Our waiter brought an entrée of near-meatless ribs served with a pasty ramekin of pabulum, resembling Gerber's but listed as mango sauce. The gritty ribs came with just one tiny cocktail napkin. So, both hands still a mess of grease and cinderlike crumbs, I rushed down to the restroom. Both the men's and women's (so I was told) were out of paper towels, so a good old-fashioned surreptitious swipe of the jeans had to suffice.

That was the conclusion of an evening that started with a simple error. The waiter trotted out two appetizers, followed immediately by the aforementioned plate of fajitas. Well, not a plate — actually, he set down a covered cylinder of warm tortillas and a sizzling platter of meat and vegetables. No plate. Then he disappeared on some errand, leaving us to consider the vanity of baked china and flatware and such.

Granted, cowboys carried their own dining utensils on the trail. And, while fajitas were first created, according to legend, back in the rowdy wilderness of the early 1970s at a Houston restaurant, the origins of this Tex-Mex favorite can probably be traced to campfires of the old Southwest, when riding herd meant quick meals of flatbread and pan-fried meat, heavily seasoned to mask the early stages of spoilage. Margarita prepares a more reputable version: an array of peppers and onions sautéed in such a manner that they lose very little flavor to the pan, nicely browned chicken and salsa redolent of garlic, followed by an intriguing smoky character. Only a bulk pastel-green purée mislabeled "guacamole" really disappoints.

Service aside, if you're a fan of sports-bar classics or "let's throw something easy on the grill" fare, the starters I sampled — stuffed jalapenos and bite-size duck breast slices — will hit the spot. The former beats similar poppers served in most American pubs. Instead of Velveeta, the pickled jalapenos are filled with a modest amount of cheddar, resulting in less goo. There's a welcome creaminess behind the sharp, one-two jabs of heat and brine. Rolled in a cornflake crust, the jalapenos are crisp and tidy.

The duck breast appetizer is a model of culinary minimalism: thin pieces of meat seared in its own fat and dressed only by a little salt, with a faint reminder of peppercorn marinade and needles of rosemary merely decorating the cast iron — quite good to pick at.

A second visit to Margarita proved to be anticlimactic. There was no stumbling, rumbling or bumbling. Some paper towels. And food that was less distinct. Queso adobado is a "my first gourmet" kit appetizer: decent goat cheese melted over slices of Albert-quality tomato, which are stacked onto rounds of pungently sweet red onion. There's no real "wow" anywhere in the dish, just a "hmm, good cheese" shrug.

Parched, nondescript, underwhelming — any of these could describe Margarita's sorry take on chicken enchiladas. And the namesake cocktail should count as dessert, a sugary concoction akin to lemon-flavored Kool-Aid.

The floor show was, for what it's worth, a one-time event. Otherwise, Margarita serves a few truly worthwhile dishes and a few that are almost insulting.