Yes, restaurants are about the food, but so much more goes into defining whether you'll rave or shrug. Sometimes, it's the company.

The first time I visited Tio's Garage & Taco Station, it was with a food-obsessed group: Five of the six work in the business, two have culinary training. On top of that, one is a Hispanic from California; another is a Latina from Mexico.

A tough crowd for Tio's, bringing as much skepticism as hunger to the table, inclined to poke critically at the plate and more than ready to compare and contrast the restaurant's "New Mex" cuisine with other styles of Mexican food.

Add to this the fact that our waitress didn't seem to be paying much attention (a more experienced server would have been responsive to the barrage of requests for this and that, and known that a little care and feeding might be a good idea).

Predictably, there was head-shaking. The charred corn-cilantro-lemon guacamole sounded intriguing but tasted bland, even after we doctored it with lime wedges cadged from the bar, salt and more hot sauce (at $6.75, we expected more). The carne adovado (marinated pork in red chili sauce; $11.50) was dismissed as "just a hunk of meat," and its posole side dish (included) wasn't what my friend had expected. Green chili stew, perhaps the defining dish of New Mexico-style Mexican cooking ($7.50), was too thin, another diner said. Meanwhile, his wife found the vegetarian burrito uninteresting ($8.75) — filled mostly with potatoes.

A menu note defines New Mex as similar to Mexican, Tex-Mex and Cal-Mex but characterized by heavy use of green chilies and cilantro, and a lighter hand with cumin and tomatillos. Much is familiar, including the usual lineup of burritos, enchiladas, tacos, taquitos, tamales, as well as free chips and salsa.

In retrospect, I enjoyed that first meal more than my fellow diners did. My carnivorous soul warmed to the slow-braised adovado, though the serving was ridiculously large and not particularly well-presented. I've never met a starchy thing I didn't like, so I kept sneaking tastes of the posole (which here meant a straightforward mound of cooked hominy, not the meaty stew my friend wanted). Chicken taquitos (rolled corn tortillas; $8.25) were as delicious as any deep-fried thing ever is and the idea of pairing the taquitos with a sweet-hot peppery jelly was a good one (but lose the unappetizing avocado drizzle on top).

My propensity for falling in love with side dishes reared its head again in encountering the rice at Tio's, brightly spiced with cilantro and cooked perfectly al dente, not that mushy, burst-open tomato-based stuff. My idea of breakfast heaven would be a plate of Tio's rice, a flour tortilla and a fried egg. The beans are well-prepared, too: Instead of al brown paste, tender whole beans swim in creamy mashed bean "gravy."

I did share the disappointment in the green chile stew, a dish with which I am familiar, and which should be thickish and emphatically NOT include celery (the flavor of which takes the whole dish hostage). However, a friend whose taste I trust ordered the stew another day, and it was celery-less and, though still soup-stock thin, deliciously spiced, he said, with a garnish of crisp vegetables. Worth a second try.

How different Tio's seemed on a sunny Saturday, when my husband and I were savoring a rare day off together. Our waitress was cheerful and quick. The salsa was just the right degree of spicy (though the hot pepper and tomato guacamole, $6.75, still needed help). His Tecate beer and my hibiscus tea cooled the heat of the tinga (spicy) beef in his taquitos ($8.25) and my stacked enchiladas (a massive meal of corn tortillas layered with beef or chicken, plus beans and rice; $9.50).

We searched our limited stock of Spanish verbs and nouns, attempting to translate the aphorisms chalked above the bar. (The only one we could decipher with certainty was "Water is for oxen, tequila is for men.") I explained the works of the pepper-roasting device out on the patio (a barrel-shaped cage that looks rather like one of those baskets in which they mix up the bingo numbers, except that it's equipped with a group of exhaust pipe-shaped gas jets that would do a drag racer proud — fun to watch when it's in use).

We checked out sports on the flat-screen TVs and chair-danced to a bouncy, updated cover of "Spanish Harlem." We got a little goofy when "Guantanamera" came on; we used to sing that together in Spanish class in high school. All the while, we ate — and watched people trying the nachos grande ($11), served on a metal tray the size of a jumbo pizza.

Though we were at this point full to the point of needing to lie down, I insisted my husband taste the sopapilla dessert ($3.75 for two) — freshly rolled tortillas, deep-fried until they puff up, then topped with cinnamon and sugar and, if you like, drizzled with honey at the table. In a down-home, no-frills way this is a killer dessert, served singe-the-tongue hot, the dough salty, yeasty and sweet. (The flan — $6 — is good, too.)

The bottom line: Tio's isn't taking Mexican food in Honolulu to a new level. But, like its predecessor, Dixie Grill, it's a comfortable place for casual fun and for filling up on reasonably priced, and generally good food.

RESTAURANT NEWS

James Babian is the new executive chef at the AAA Five Diamond Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, overseeing day-to-day operations in two oceanfront restaurants, the fine-dining Pahu i'a and the Beach Tree Bar & Grill, where new menu concepts are planned. There is also a contemporary sushi bar in the hotel's Lava Lounge.

Babian is originally from Illinois, where his family owned a supper club. He studied at California Culinary Institute and has 25 years of restaurant experience. He's been in Hawai'i for some years, most recently at the Fairmont Orchid at Mauna Lani, up the Kohala Coast.

Babian is active in his profession, as board chair and past president of the Kona-Kohala Chefs de Cuisine group, advisory board member for the Hawai'i Community College Culinary Arts program and Big Island American Culinary Federation Chef of the Year in 2006 and 2007. In 2001, he and his predecessor at the Four Seasons, James Cassidy, cooked for a sold-out audience at the Beard House.

Got an idea for a restaurant we should check out, or a food comparison you'd like to see? Reach Wanda Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com; fax 525-8055; or write Wanda Adams, Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802.

— Wanda A. Adams

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.

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