4868 Rainier Ave S (Columbia City), 725-1418.

Tues-Thurs 5:30-9:30 pm, Fri-Sat 5:30-10 pm, Sun 5:30-9 pm.

Like cigar bars and aerobics, the heyday of fusion cuisine seems to have come and gone. Artsy edible culture clashes with Pacific Rim accents no longer seem as compelling as simplicity and regional produce; it now feels much more important to know who farmed and packed your heirloom tomatoes than it is to cram assorted imported ingredients into your next dinner party.

This doesn't mean fusion cooking isn't appealing anymore. In fact, now that we've gotten wasabi-ginger steak and Thai-curry onion rings out of our system, I'm curious to see what else will happen. The impulse to mix cultural preparations is a good one--bending rules, playing with textures and tastes. The familiar aspects of Mexican cooking--low-heat stews, fiery peppers, and other aggressive trademarks--could benefit, for example, from the clear stocks and refined sauces of classic French cuisine.

This is why I was eager to eat at Columbia City's Deux Tamales, a restaurant and tequila bar that offers Latino-French cuisine. My meal, however, was woefully uneven, and I left disappointed.

Things got off to a fabulous start: a mojito ($6) with white rum and muddled limejuice, flawlessly sweetened, flecked with mint. The glamorous cocktails are made with unusual ingredients (cosmopolitans with Spanish cava champagne; "Tito's Ultimate Margarita" with reposado and orange brandy), and tequila flights-- boutique tequila samplers ($8.50-$12)--are also available.

Our guacamole ($5.95) was fresh and flavorful with the right balance of ingredients--a purist recipe, which is always a good sign. But our tamale appetizer ($4.95) was a single arid pocket stuffed with unremarkable shredded beef. Tamales should be moist corn masa filled with meat stewed in robust liquid; these looked limp and tasted bland.

Mango and Brie quesadillas ($7.95) were also not what I expected. While the nutty, buttery Brie--melted just right and blending well with onions and tomatoes--was delicious, I longed for thick slices of ripe, sweet mango to mingle with that creamy cheese. Instead, I got barely-there slivers of green mango virtually obliterated by a smoky tomatillo salsa (which was, fortunately, really good and complex). Perhaps this is a Francophile version: It is very French to adorn pastries with thinly sliced fruits.

I enjoyed my Pescado Magnifique (market price), grilled mahi mahi with perfectly sautéed green beans and excellent whipped potatoes--although the potatoes were not the "jalapeño mashers" that were promised on the menu. A chili-and-spice-rubbed sirloin steak ($14.95) was solid (nicely medium-rare and juicy), but curiously served with both Spanish rice and mashed potatoes. Once again, jalapeño mashers were offered, but did not appear.

Le Crepe de Pollo ($11.95) was one of the few distinctly French features from this kitchen, and my favorite dish by far: moist, herbed chicken--sautéed with rich stock, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and chilies--cloaked with a feathery crepe (thick enough to handle its stuffing yet somehow still delicate), then topped with a tasty apricot-cider glaze and garnished with a cluster of pickled red cabbage. All of those distinct flavors, punctuated by the glaze's sweetness, worked beautifully together with slow-stewed black beans and fluffy Spanish rice. Another chicken dish, the Enchiladas Enrique ($12.95), did not fare so well: dry, boring roasted chicken rolled into soft tortillas and sauced with a benign molé that was clove-heavy but chocolate-shy. (We got our chocolate fix later, though, with a decadent slab of Mexican chocolate mousse cake with crème anglaise.)

With the exception of the Chimichanga con Chèvre appetizer, the aforementioned quesadillas, a smattering of niçoise olives on some nachos, sides of haricots verts (French green beans: a stretch), and a confusing Gumbo Latina (sort of Creole, kind of French?), Deux Tamales is basically a Nuevo Latino restaurant with occasional diverse flourishes--which is fine, but not the fusion experience it claims to be. Diners expecting a significant batch of French ingredients and layered multi-culti interpretations might feel misled; the sensibility is steadfastly Mexican. "Once upon a time there was a French chef," the menu's front cover reads. "His mission was to combine the flavors of his country with the flavors from Mexico... the rest is history." As it turns out, this history has yet to be written.