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If I ever make it back to Adelita's Mexican Restaurant, 2405 N.E. Central Ave., Minneapolis, - and I might - it'll probably be to check out the karaoke and dj Marcelo el Guero. There's a big banner in the dining room advertising karaoke every Friday and Saturday night, featuring Marcelo el Guero. (Karaoke is hot in local Mexican restaurants - I've seen it advertised at La Poblanita and Pancho Villa, and other restaurants as well.) I've picked up a little street Spanish over the years, but I didn't know what guero meant, so I asked our waiter, who said it means, "white guy."

It was a Sunday afternoon, so the place was half-empty, and the flat-screen monitors were all tuned to a Dutch football league soccer game. Adelita's is a modest but tidy café, with cozy booths and a pretty standard menu of Mexican specialties, with flautas, sopes, burritos, enchiladas, and the usual entrees - chicken mole, puerco en salsa verde, bistec a la Mexicana, etc. I asked for chilaquiles - strips of tortilla fried in salsa, topped with a couple of fried eggs, and our friendly server brought us the breakfast menu, even though it was past noon. My chilaquiles were nothing special, but Carol's seafood fajitas ($12.99) were terrific - a big pile of seafood, onions and peppers, brought to the table on a sizzling skillet, accompanied by hot tortillas and a big plate of rice, beans, lettuce and guacamole. The seafood included shrimp,  fish, a green-lipped mussel, tiny clams, some fake crab, and a generous chunk of snow crab, in the shell, easily big enough to share. Surfing Adelita's website, I found this reassuring message: " We want to state that the Owners, the Manager and the Chef of Adelita's Mexican Restaurant are Mexican; guaranteeing the service, the quality and the flavors of all our Mexican dishes."

Less reassuring was the recipe for taquitos Monterey that I found on the recipe page, which gives instructions for combining a dozen El Monterey brand chicken taquitos with a 19 oz. can green enchilada sauce, a can of evaporated milk, plus sour cream and Monterey Jack cheese. Does this mean that Adelita's home cooking is actually made from frozen factory taquitos and canned salsa? I don't think so - there are no taquitos on Adelita's menu, and the salsa roja tasted very homemade. I think they just thought it would be a nice gesture to add a recipe page to the website, and they found one online that would be easy for gueros to prepare - it's the only part of the website that isn't also in Spanish. 

Adelita's Mexican Restaurant, 2405 Central Ave. N.E. Minneapolis, 612-789-2526.