It’s Friday. So slide into a booth and burn away the week’s troubles with a customarily addictive house salsa and warm chips. For bigger troubles, administer a dose of habanero sting from the unique cabbage slaw salsa. Water in a fountain splashes somewhere nearby while ceiling fans twirl above.

For the last eight years – two under the current owner – diners could enjoy this relaxed, cantina-like atmosphere at Las Palmitas at Tiffany Square. Since December of 2011, however, the neighborhood Mexican gem dropped the “like” and became a full-on cantina by adding cervezas and Margaritas thanks to their shiny new liquor license.

This is, by far, the best, most convincing and, yes, only indoor cantina I’ve experienced. Now filled with various businesses, Tiffany Square was once a mall and a fountain near the escalators is the source of the gurgling water. The restaurant’s faux walls, complete with paned windows, rise only halfway to the vaulted glass ceiling for an open-air feeling.

There are, after all, many occasions you only want to feel like you’re outside without being so. Rain, cold weather and Miller moths are but a few examples. Outdoor dining, here brought inside, feels casual and relaxing, sometimes almost celebratory, and there is much to celebrate – now by raising a beer – on Las Palmitas’ lengthy menu.

I turned right away to the entire page of fajita offerings, both the familiar skillets of ingredients as well as tacos and enchiladas filled with fajita meat. Some choices, however, are far from familiar. Take the Parrillada Las Palmitas ($16.95), whose skillet will serve up chicken, beef, shrimp, quail, sausage and Chacales (head-on shrimp).

Not in the mood to be that left field, I chose the still-creative Aloha Fajitas ($13.95). Chicken or steak is grilled with pineapple, bacon, onions, bell peppers and jalapenos, and the skillet arrives in a cloud of fruity bacon steam. Paired with soft, thick, hand-sized tortillas, the ingredient combination proves to be just as harmonious and happy with Mexican flair as it can sometimes be on Hawaiian pizza.

Standard fajitas also stood up. The combination (chicken, beef and shrimp for $15.95) was populated with moist meat on a bed of onions. Perhaps too many onions and at four, too few shrimp  for the price, but all together pleasing with its side of good guacamole.

Again, the menu is long and contains all the tostada-taco-burrito-enchilada combinations as well as tamale, relleno, chalupa and chimichanga combos a diner could desire ($6.95 for one item, $8.95 for two and $10.95 for three).

However, I was cheered by the inclusion of more sophisticated options like the Pollo Mole ($10.95), too. The pepper-based, complexly spiced (as opposed to spicy) sauce was earthy and rich with a great slow burn on the back end. The always-tricky chicken, however, was a bit dry. 

Even so, mole is a nice departure from common acid-based Mexican sauces, although those will likely always have delicious menu dominance. For example, there’s the tart, tomatillo-based green sauce of the cheese-covered Enchiladas Verdes ($9.95).

That green sauce, the red sauce and cream sauce – the latter a great option for the heat phobic on the Enchiladas La Crema ($9.55) – are all made in house. The same is true for the rice and beans. The former are unmemorable, but the beans are tasty, if thinner than I like.

In my opinion, there’s no reason to wait in line for a table on a Friday when the friendly staff of Las Palmitas can usually seat you directly. There’s even a massive second dining room hiding behind the bar. On my visits, the service was friendly and relatively speedy, especially quick to proffer drink refills or dessert menus.

For those drinks: Try the horchata ($1.50), a milky glass of refreshment and cinnamon served over ice. For the dessert: The dough of the sopapillas ($3.75) is unusually thin and delicate, surrounding a pillow of sweet, hot air and drizzled with strawberry sauce.

Perhaps the best time to visit Las Palmitas is midday. Large portions and small prices crowd the lunch menu, which ranges from $5.25-$7.25. My fish taco with crispy fish, ripe avocado and pico met my quality expectations and filled my belly for only $5.50.

Then again, in terms of time, it’s happy hour at the restaurant seven days a week from 3-6 p.m.

Tasty but somewhat typical of many local Mexican places, the food may not have been enough to draw diners into this hidden, mall-encased restaurant before. Now that they’ve stepped up to the plate to offer a complete dining experience, though, Las Palmitas could become the place in town to party on the patio without the inconvenience of the actual outdoors.

Aloha Fajitas Photo by Kate Jonuska

Enchiladas La Crema Photo by Kate Jonuska

Enchiladas Verdes Photo by Kate Jonuska