Suba

One look at her espadrilles and Lee's and I know she's visiting from Sioux City, spent the afternoon on the Toys "R" Us ferris wheel and has come to Suba just to wow Eleanor and Betty with her exotic tale of a "Pan-Latin" dinner inside a converted bodega when she returns.

"Could you hold the door for me?" she asks.

I press my freshly shellacked lips together. The shine of the stainless-steel sink is brighter than the light. "You can't tell if it's locked," she explains. Thinking this will create an interesting vacation memory for her, I hold the doorknob, admiring the Minwaxed door while I listen to her pee.

Back at the table I fortunately don't have a view of Espadrille Woman, but one of a tanned couple feeding each other ceviche from an elegant glass instead. I find my friends reaching into a basket of slenderly cut sourdough bread.

"The olive oil's imported from Spain," says one, as a waiflike waitress strides over to the table and cards us for our drink orders. We offer our IDs in exchange for $10 margaritas.

We should be thrilled. We're sitting in "the grotto" after all. But it turns out the highly coveted subterranean water room is really nothing more than a boring cave-like space above a murky green pool. Guess I've been spoiled by those fountains in suburban Chinese restaurants.

Here are the drinks. Am jealous of my friend's Suba Cosmopolitan, a swirl of Absolut Mandrin, Cointreau and lime juice that looks like a parfait and tastes like summer melted in a glass. My own Black Currant Rumarita, a pulpy fuchsia concoction, reminds me why I loathe Tropicana Homestyle. The mixture of rum, black currant puree and cranberry-lime juice is inventive, but I'm so agitated by the lime-soaked bits swimming around the curlicued orange peel it takes me all night to finish sipping.

One by one the tapas dishes arrive, each beautifully arranged.

"Be careful how you cut this," our Courteney Cox server whispers, like we're the first customers she's ever let in on this kitchen secret. "You need to make sure you taste all the flavors." She's referring to the Serrano ham, quince and goat cheese sandwiched between two thin wafers resembling matzoh. We do as instructed. The taste is something like an exotic cream cheese bagel.

I heap tangy goat-cheese-spiked guacamole over otherwise bland roasted Chistorra sausage, hoping the steamed asparagus with sherry-marinated raspberries, accompanied by a corn arepa, will not disappoint. But the arepa, with its center cut out and seductively laid on a flavorless asparagus stalk, tastes like a pancake made with expired Bisquick, and the raspberries add nothing but a colorful touch to a stark white plate.

The ceviches, a lobster marinated in citrus juices and the arctic char, sound a bit more exotic than they taste, but you feel so posh spooning them out of a glass you don't really care. Chicken marinated in Dos Equis tastes sweet, especially with the addition of caramelized rhubarb. The fingerling potatoes accompanying it, sitting very prettily next to juicy tomatoes, are good but ordinary. Like something Mom made every Tuesday with pot roast.

The desserts are visually stunning. The mango sorbet, studded with warm raspberries and a delicate white-chocolate tuile, is tasty, but no better than something a Bleecker St. cafe can whip up for half the price.

"This isn't sexual-looking or anything," my friend exclaims as she digs into the chocolate con aguacate. The thick coffee-avocado shake (still wondering what happened to the avocado) in a phallic glass cylinder stands erect between two perfectly round mounds of flourless chocolate cake drizzled with truffle oil. Sensual, daring and with just the right amount of spice. Perhaps my trek to the Lower East Side is justified.

As my shoes clatter against the steel staircase on the way out, I am saddened. Not so much that I ate dinner in a cellar, or even that Courteney swiped my margarita before I could finish it. No, I am sad because Espadrille Woman will be back at home in a few days, telling her friends she went over her AmEx limit and there weren't even any goldfish in the pool.

Suba, 109 Ludlow St. (betw. Rivington & Delancey Sts.), 982-5714.