Steak, mofongo, rice and beans at Comerio's.

* * * Comerio's
158 Park St., Hartford, (860) 246-0210

Food can have magical properties. One minute you're walking down Hartford's Park Street, grumbling as the absurd booming bass of passing traffic sets off the alarms of parked cars. The next minute you're pointing toward Main Street, admiring the beautiful rounded brick Victorian apartment buildings that face the street. What happened in between to change your outlook? You had a solid meal at Comerio's, one of Hartford's venerable Puerto Rican eateries. Now you're feeling grounded (almost inert), nourished, and everything seems great.

Lisa and I ate at Comerio's for the first time last week. I don't even know how it took us this long to get there. None of the excuses are good. I feel like an apology is owed. To my stomach.

Once past the display case — which is loaded up with cod fritters, beef patties, sausage, chicken wings, fried plantains, and stuffed potato balls — Comerio's has the look of an old diner, with a vintage-looking counter lined with shiny stools. There are about a half dozen or so tables in the little room. To get an indication of how serious they are at Comerio's, just count the number of workers there are buzzing around behind the counter; it rivals the number of seats in the restaurant. And the place rings with the energetic clatter of plates, pans and bus trays getting vigorously banged about. From the street, you could easily get the mistaken idea that there's no place to sit inside. There is, but some of the spots are a little snug. Another thing worth knowing: there are menus. Camerio's has the look of a place where you might just have to point at items on a steam table, but it's not. There's a kitchen off to the side of the room, bustling, making food to order. And the menu is worth exploring. There are daily specials, soups, sandwiches, breakfast, a range of interesting appetizers and side dishes (stewed pig ears, blood sausage, boiled bananas, hog maws, fried fish, pork kabobs, fried corn meal, potato puffs and more). It's not overstuffed with adventure items though; there's plenty of ribs, pork chops, steak and chicken. There are octopus, king fish and shrimp dishes, too.

We started out with a simple papa rellena, a potato ball stuffed with some ground beef and a little cheese. The ball was about the size of an apple, with a pleasing exterior crust. Not exactly brittle or crisp and crunchy, but firm and roasty, golden brown. The potato mixture is a little more solid and chunky than you might expect — it's not like a lump of mashed potatoes. And the little spoonful of ground beef mixture in the middle is more like a little surprise flourish, a surprise at the center. I don't think there's a better $1.75 appetizer in town.

My entree, an order of lechon asado (roast pork) had me thinking about salt. The pork had obviously been cooking for quite a while, and it was impossibly tender as a result. What's more the exterior had been thoroughly coated with a mixture of salt and ground black pepper. There may have been more to it — I've seen recipes that call for herb mixtures, citrus juice, grated onion and all kinds of other stuff — but I don't think there was. And the simplicity made for an excellent dish.

We also had an order of fried steak, which was an almost equally basic preparation of thin, pounded steak, pan fried with onions. It was very good. Entrees come with an imposing plate of rice and a bowl of pinto beans cooked with a fair amount of liquid and perhaps a little tomato juice. If you go, you should be sure to order a side of mofongo, which is a dish of mashed plantains and garlic. The mofongo at Comerio's is first-rate, it's almost light, except it's really dense and filling. It's great to sop up whatever else it is you'll be eating, which will be a lot. This is food that can change your outlook.