dining out

Tangierino (617) 242-6009 83 Main Street, Charlestown Open Mon–Sat, 5:30 p.m.–12:30 a.m.; Sun, 11 a.m.–3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.–12:30 a.m. AE, Di, MC, Vi No valet parking Access up slight step from sidewalk level

I seldom review in Charlestown: there aren’t many restaurants of interest, the best-known doesn’t take reservations, and you can’t park. But I will go pretty far for Moroccan food, surely the best underrepresented cuisine in New England. Couldn’t we do something about this insufficiency? I don’t mean that the United States should invade Morocco, although we did get a lot of good Vietnamese restaurants using that approach. But couldn’t Boston-area colleges set up a special scholarship program for promising Moroccan, oh, computer-engineering students or nuclear physicists? A number of Taiwanese ex-students have set up restaurants, and they’ve been a real boon to the local dining scene.

Samad Naamad came to Boston as a student, went into the furniture business (he probably didn’t major in furniture), and more recently opened Tangierino, a rather terrific Moroccan restaurant in Charlestown. We need more like him. Or at least we need more like Naamad’s chef, Chafik Larobi. This is obvious right away, starting with the complimentary appetizer of hummus hotted up with harissa (the chili-based spice paste) on strips of " Moroccan bread. " The latter is very unusual. It’s a flatbread, but white and sweet and rather dense, more like a biscotto than a pita.

This appetizer tells us we’re not in Kansas anymore, even before we take in all the unusual furniture and décor in the three dark rooms. Naamad’s taste runs to what might be called Maghrebian moderne. The intricate Islamic patterns are there, in filigree lamps and such, but so is a huge photograph of a desert tribesman, some shiny things that would fit in a ’50s retro bar, and a lot of cushioned upholstery. Likewise, the menu offers both traditional slow-cooked stews and a group of modernized, nouvelle treatments that wouldn’t be out of place at a French restaurant, although they’re spiked with Moroccan spices.

In fact, the calamari dusted with ras al hanout ($8.50) wouldn’t look out of place in one of Boston’s Irish pubs these days. The flavors are from another world, however, with caramelized onions, slices of green olive and preserved lemon peel, and a whiff of sweet spice that carries the crunchy nuggets of squid to another level. The crab cake, er, " tagra " ($11.50), is fashionably vertical with accents of cilantro and pepper. A tagine of mussels ($9) revises our idea of a mussel appetizer with a tomato-mint-hot-pepper sauce. From the traditional Moroccan repertoire, the chicken bastilla ($9/$17 entrée) replaces some of the sugar and butter with fruit, and makes a clever topping of minted cream. This is a leaner reading of the classic cinnamon-scented pigeon pie, but every bit as enticing. The only appetizer we found less than amazing was the entirely competent salade de Tangier ($8.50), field greens surrounded by slices of orange and olives.

Tagine djaj ($18.50) is a cone-topped casserole of chicken with a lemon sauce, served here on French fries! Ours was not very lemony, but it was primal comfort food: the chicken had a deep flavor and an onion gravy that made the underlying frites irresistible as well. Also on the modern side, lamb kadra ($23) is a rack of lamb chops, served with a cake of paper-thin potatoes and nicely made green beans. Except for the enhanced lamb flavor, this is a standard Boston-bistro dish.

Not so the wonderful couscous bidaoui ($23). This is a terrific braised lamb chop on buttery yet light couscous, with seven discrete steamed vegetables, including winter squash, parsnip, carrot, zucchini, and potato. (The vegetarian version [$17] is what every vegetarian nervously hopes for when walking into a new restaurant.) Paella Tetuanese ($23) worried me. It’s hard to do a restaurant paella that gets the rice done without overcooking most of the seafood. But chef Larobi takes on a different challenge. His idea of paella is soupier. It is, in fact, risotto. This he does with a fine seafood flavor, and controlled cooking of clams, mussels, shrimp, and squid. A guest who had been to Tetuan pronounced this a far better dish than the original.

The wine list is very interesting, with offerings from all over the world. It’s somewhat expensive, but there are nightly specials and 14 wines by the glass ($6 to $12). We had the wine special, a 1999 Bajoz Joven Tinto de Toro from northeastern Spain ($28). This is unusually soft for a young Spanish red, but clean and fruity, perhaps with some grenache grapes in the blend. I suspect that American technicians have been to Toro, bearing samples of California merlot. In any case, it was certainly a very good complement to the complex but gentle spices of Moroccan food.

Moroccan cuisine is not geared toward dessert at the end of a large meal, but it is rich in super-sweets to be eaten with tea. Tangierino does not make the mistake of offering the traditional tea pastries after dinner, but has designed desserts that work. Figs shamali ($8) come about as close to a traditional plate of fresh fruit and nuts as it gets, and here the fresh figs (a wonderful summer fruit) are poached in a light sauce with a sail of pastry. Crème brûlée ($8) is rich without exotic flavoring. A lemon tart ($8) is complementary to the food, a low, flat, tart kind of tart. But the best idea is probably the plate of four sorbets ($9), especially the stunning mango.

Moroccan tea ($3.50) is available; it’s pre-sweetened mint tea poured in a long stream from pot to glass. In the java department, the restaurant sticks to espresso and cappuccino.

The atmosphere at Tangierino is hard to describe. Although much of the décor is modern (and for sale, by the way), the contrast with this early-American section of Charlestown near City Square makes the restaurant seem highly exotic. The space has two bars and functions rather well as a bar with wines by the glass, exotic snacks, and an early group of young Europeans and Middle Easterners (and wanna-bes) who seem to know the owners. It will be interesting to see how foodies react to something that is neither as self-consciously authentic as Lala Rokh or the Helmand, nor as intensely creative as Oleana. What Tangierino has is a feeling of youth and fashion that might be typified by the background music, which covers a soft spectrum from rai to techno without becoming overly intrusive.