Cheese and beans, beans and cheese. 

Smear these ingredients on warm tortillas, add a side of guacamole, and you have all the permutations of what passes for a menu at so many so-called Mexican restaurants.  Throw in a mariachi band on Sundays and you’re in business. 

Memorable Mexican restaurants, though, are the ones that go beyond the easy, generic, Americanized fare and take pride in authentic Mexican and creative fusion dishes too. Since it opened five years ago in downtown Westerly, Senor Flaco’s has tried to serve up a little more than the same old refried version of cheap Tex-Mex.  Later this month, Flaco’s will recommit itself to this approach when it unveils a new menu with improved recipes and new dishes, including a trout escabeche special that I previewed Saturday and can’t wait to eat again.

Chef Terrence Maul explained the recipe to me as I sampled the dish, which will make you forget all about those cheesy, beany burritos and enchiladas.  Maul starts by dusting the trout with pimento, paprika, flour, and salt before shallow frying both sides in crackling hot, peppery Spanish olive oil for 30 seconds or so.  He then cools the trout and puts it in a casserole dish for a long, slow acidic marinating with Jerez sherry vinegar and capers.  The fish is served cold atop quinoa, nutty and fluffy, that’s been dressed with cumin and bright, thinly sliced, pickled jalapenos, all on a bed of greens and topped with a few purple slivers of pickled onions.  It’s a cool, refreshing dish perfect for summer. 

Senor Flacos will debut its new menu after Cinco de Mayo but before May 15, according to owner Dan King and manager Tim Lanterman.  King recently closed for good his other restaurant, the upscale Up River Café, where Maul was executive chef, after the March flood on the Pawcatuck River that shut down the place for weeks.  The silver lining in this for those of us who love to eat is that Maul—once sous chef to Ming Tsai—is now consultant and chef at Flaco’s, at least for this summer. 

Maul and the kitchen have made over the menu with more creativity and variety at the same time they are striving for strict discipline in how each dish is prepared.  They’ve developed what King describes as a Bible of core flavors, spices, and sauces that they hope will guarantee consistency in every dish night after night, year after year.  All the staff will know exactly what goes into the mole or into the ancho sauce, for example, and what they should taste like. 

Plenty of the old dishes will remain, including the popular camarones con aguacates (shrimp in avocado sauce), but the Bible discipline will mean that “the main flavor won’t be avocado on some nights,” as Lanterman put it, “or garlic on others,” King added, “depending on the day you came in.” 

Besides the escabeche special, new dishes will include seared Atlantic salmon with black bean corn cakes, Guajilla braised brisket with coconut rice steamed in banana leaves, and chili-dusted halibut with braised chorizo, peas, and artichokes in a chipotle tomato broth.  Local, seasonal ingredients will be used when possible.

The kitchen also will make its own taquitos and breading for its fish tacos and offer healthier side dishes on the children’s menu.  Flaco’s will no longer serve jalapeno poppers, the greasy “American treat,” King said.

Don’t worry, though.  In addition to all the changes, you’ll still be able to find your favorite dishes with cheese and beans and beans and cheese.