RESTAURANT REVIEW : There’s Lots of Cheer Here, but Fun Fades When Food Arrives : The friendly, good-time atmosphere at Fundango’s in Ventura is marred by a menu filled with mostly mediocre fare.

The name should tell you something. Fundango’s Mexican Restaurant & Cantina isbuilt for the good time, the toss-your-troubles-to-the-wind kind of party place.

In service to the good time, the Ventura outlet of this Mexican restaurant chain has two large dining rooms flanking a jammed bar. In good weather, the fun spills onto the lovely enclosed patio out back.

Have a seat and a waiter will tout every imaginable flavor and color of margarita known. You will be invited to consider a place-mat menu of quick appetizers before perusing the full dinner menu--a move, evidently, to get you quickly into the energy of the place.

Well, don’t rush. The ethos will envelope you within minutes anyway.

Birthday songs erupt at a nearby table. Knots of men at the bar cheer the sporting event on overhead TV. A waiter you’ve never seen smiles and calls you amigo . The Budweiser Girl, shrink-wrapped in a Budweiser swimsuit, parades on heels through the dining room as patrons, taco-chomping mouths agape, slowly nod to each other in the realization: Oh, poor thing, it’s so crowded in bar, she had to detour out here to get to the other side.

What price hath fun?

At times, a hefty gustatory one.

Food here is best described as mediocre overall, with one or two high spots, a few flat failures--and, on one visit, a notable horror. Order up that margarita, after all.

Start with an order of mini corn tacos ($4.25), each folded and stuffed with grilled chicken, onions and tomatoes. Easily the best appetizer sampled, the dish is simple, fresh, flavorsome and a generous bargain. Avoid the albondigas soup ($1.95 a cup), however, which is flavorful in the meatballs but completely overwhelmed by salt.

Caesar salad ($4.95) a half order, is a bore and pricey for it: chopped Romaine with a cloying, viscous creamy dressing. Tacos de pescado ($4.25), in which three double corn tortillas are filled with sauteed whitefish scented with onion, fail because fish chunks are dried out, tough from overcooking, metallic in flavor.

Dallas red wings ($3.95) is a variant on Buffalo wings. They’re marinated before frying and covered by something called BBQ Diablo sauce. The meat is overcooked; the sauce falls far below its incendiary promise. Only the accompanying black beans and French fries--who’s asking about the concept, anyway?--are good enough.

Chicken fajitas ($9.45) are quite satisfying, if not memorable, and represent the best entree sampled. The meat slices are nicely charred, flavorful from spicing and laden with mounds of fresh bell peppers, onions and tomatoes. Only the condiment tray of avocado relish and pico de gallo was lacking in flavor, color, freshness--a key disappointment, nonetheless, as good fajitas are distinguished from great fajitas by their customizing accompaniments.

The seafood quesadilla ($9.95) is fine in the jumbo shrimp and scallops but bland, overall, with its cheese filler. An accompanying mango salsa was on the road to real flavor but still unable to bail out the dish. Las Brisas Marinas ($10.95) is pleasant enough but strangely under-flavored for all its ingredients: shrimp and chicken chunks sauteed in white wine with avocado, pepper, onion and tomato chunks.

Then, the horror: honey-mustard chicken burrito ($6.95). Touted by the menu as “a great recipe from a famous Beverly Hills restaurant,” this bunker-sized roll, dappled with honey-mustard sauce, was stuffed with grilled fajita -style chicken and black beans--and, halfway through the eating, a three-inch torn piece of heat-shriveled plastic.

A profusely apologetic manager investigated and reported that some of Fundango’s dishes employ ingredients in plastic pouches known as “portion control” containers. When the chef went to heat up this burrito’s innards, he slashed the bag in two and, said the manager, let one of the pieces drop into the food.

The manager offered another entree and, in what only can be described as the unrelenting Fundango spirit, refused to accept payment for anything that night. He was utterly genuine, and no doubt relieved a patron hadn’t eaten the plastic.

Still, the gesture’s not enough to get me to go back any time soon--not even for fun.

Details

* WHAT: Fundango’s Mexican Restaurant & Cantina.

* WHERE: 3940 E. Main St., Ventura.

* WHEN: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, till 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m.-10 p.m. on Sundays.

* HOW MUCH: Dinner for two, food only: $14-$35.

* CALL: 654-1206.

* FYI: Major credit cards accepted.