Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- ``Ten for ten,'' my friend insisted.

Preposterous. ``Seven of ten,'' I conceded.

Boqueria, a tapas bar and restaurant in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, isn't perfect. And I figured the food would get worse on subsequent visits, once I got around to ordering the weird, worrisome fishy things that are a mandatory aspect of the tapas experience.

Of the 10 dishes we'd tried, the Serrano ham slivers on tomato-topped flattened baguette slices were dry and boring. (Serrano ham in New York is almost always dreary.)

The soft, cumin-soaked lamb skewers -- they're called ``pintxos'' -- tasted like Indian food. And the meat of the suckling pig was overly chewy, even if the crunchy skin was a paradigm of porkiness.

The other seven dishes were undeniably impeccable: seared foie gras, meltingly rich, with caramelized apples, atop toast; sea trout belly, sashimi-like, with sliced caperberries; truffled lentils with a poached egg, more intense than the suckling pig; blistered peppers as irresistible as salted peanuts; sobrasada, a soft sausage reminiscent of French rillette; fried dough almost as good as what I've eaten in Mexico City, although here a dessert and there a breakfast; and the most intense of custards, made with egg yolks and showered with a melon ice.

Sea Creatures

Later, with trepidation, I ate sardines and anchovies every which way and admired every last presentation, even an unlikely snack of anchovy, goat cheese, oven-roasted tomatoes and tapenade on toast. I looked. I shuddered. I ate. I ordered more.

Despite so many appealing dishes, Boqueria remains problematic.

It's tiny. It's in an inconvenient part of town. It accepts reservations only at lunch. It's noisy. It's jammed. The wall art is grocery-store merchandise.

An unflappable staff, not just a consistently good kitchen, saves the day.

Servers swivel serenely through packed aisles. They tolerate uninformed customers (like me) asking infinite questions. ``What are embutidos?'' (Basically, sausages.) ``Media raciones?'' (Best I can tell, semi-large half-portions). They wear drab brown shirts that read ``Boqueria,'' perfect for a bowling team.

Smelly Moment

The inspiration for Boqueria is the tapas bars of Barcelona, where I've not been. In San Sebastian, where I've eaten extensively, tapas tend to feature small sea creatures. Hence my trepidation.

I did have one smelly moment at Boqueria -- a special of fried thumbnail squid coated with chickpea flour. Surprisingly, the odoriferousness was appealingly fresh.

The customers are mostly young, like the staff. With customers, that can be trying. With staff, that can be entertaining: A lanky young bartender wearing beltless hip-riding jeans continually flashed the tattoo on her left cheek when she bent over, which she did a lot.

A woman with me on a Saturday-night visit remarked, ``This doesn't feel 30s young. This feels college young. If I were on a date, I'd leave.''

While waiting for a table to open up in the main dining area, we miraculously found a banquette seat in the bar. We didn't eat. We were too busy defending our space. Youth, made unsteady either by eagerness or excessive sangria, ebbed and flowed.

Comfort Zone

When the hostess came for us, she said, ``You sure you don't want to stay here? It's much more comfortable than in the back.''

Scary thought.

The mostly beige dining area is long and narrow. Seating is on tall bar stools or lofty banquettes. You don't sit. You roost. At least you're high above the fray.

``I feel like a little kid in a booster chair,'' my friend said. ``If this were a normal chair, the place would feel claustrophobic.''

The chef is Seamus Mullen, who is not from Spain, although he has lived and worked there. He seems to be doing for Spanish food what young American chefs, notably Mario Batali, did for Italian food, reinventing it without ruining it, capturing the spirit and the style without worrying excessively about authenticity.

The scorched padron peppers, for example, aren't padron peppers -- they're a Japanese variety, grown in California. Where Barcelona restaurants squiggle mayonnaise, Mullen substitutes flavored aiolis.

Aioli Overload

The aiolis are sensational with fried food -- blood-orange for those tiny squid; cucumber for crisp nuggets of hake, a not- to-be-missed blackboard special. Unfortunately, Mullen doesn't stop there.

Maybe irrepressible Spaniards like mayo on almost everything. Not me. Aioli nearly saturated a puffy golden slice of tortilla that left alone would have been pretty enough for the Prado. Then it landed on a paella intended to be shared.

With or without aioli, paella is the only irredeemable item in the place. Served in a round pan, it comes out overcooked and crusty. The ingredients have fused. Add doodles of aioli and it resembles a jumbo danish.

The wine list is earnest and obscure. The few customers who might be familiar with Spanish wines won't recognize most of them. For a white, try the 2005 Naia ($39); for a red, the 2004 Castano Hecula ($39).

The sangria, loaded with fresh chopped fruit, comes four ways, the white being the fruitiest and the beer-and-lemon version the punchiest. A pitcher costs $32. A friend remarked, ``Isn't a pitcher of sangria supposed to cost $3.20?''

The Bloomberg Questions

Cost? Prices range from $4 for most sausages to $64 for prime rib for two.

Sound level? Think of the roar in a bullring when a matador makes the first pass with his cape.

Date place? You'll sit close, which is good. You'll have to scream endearments, which is not.

Tip? Don't miss the blackboard specials, in particular the stew of giant beans, littleneck clams, dried apricots and pork -- Mullen's surf 'n' turf.

Special feature? The bar snacks called montados can be ordered at tables and shouldn't be overlooked, especially those made with foie gras.

Lunch? Yes, and seats at the bar are usually available.

Will I be back? Until I'm too old to scale those stools.

Boqueria is at 53 W. 19th St. Information: +1-212-255-4160 or http://www.boquerianyc.com.

(Alan Richman is a restaurant critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Alan Richman at thecritic@optonline.net.

Last Updated: February 28, 2007 00:02 EST