Casa Paco is one big, likable, aiming-to-please place: a part-Cuban, part-Spanish restaurant; a gift shop with Spanish dolls, ceramics and gourmet items; a deli specializing in chocolates, olives, cheeses and serrano ham; and a bocatería with Spanish subs, including one big enough to feed an entire family.

The look and feel are formal but cozy, with timbered ceilings, arched windows, bouquets of silk roses, models of sailing ships, starched table linens and waiters in black tie.

You want bargain Cuban? It's here. You want fancier dishes from the ancient Celtic regions of Asturias and Galicia? Or that sought-after Spanish delicacy angulas de aguinaga, needle-thin, baby eels? They're here, along with 85 well-chosen wines priced from $13 to $995 (a Vega-Sicilia Unico 1962).

There is also reliable English translation of every item on the menu and a wait staff that can switch between English and Spanish with the greatest ease. There's even a kids' menu, for heaven's sake.

Our favorites on the bargain-priced list of Cuban daily specials (many under $10) include lomo de cerdo asado, a melt-in-your-mouth, oven-roasted pork loin with black beans and rice, yuca and a mojo sauce with real pizazz, and codorniz al vino, literally quail but here a Cornish hen served in a white wine sauce with white rice and fried sweet plantains.

Other dishes that keep customers like us coming back to Paco's are the house chicken marinated in a mojo of lime juice and garlic, grilled and then topped with a buttery sauce of sautéed onions and lime juice, and the conejo a la casera, home-style rabbit cooked in a casserole with potatoes, carrots and a sauce of onions, tomato and wine.

On our most recent visit, we focus on the Spanish side of the vast menu, divided among pork, beef, chicken, fish and seafood entrees plus classic (and gigantic) Spanish omelets, including a Basque version with shrimp and ham.

If you don't mind waiting 20 to 45 minutes, there are also delectable rice dishes for two such as paella, arroz con mariscos (with shrimp, lobster, scallops, fish and clams), arroz con pollo and arroz con almejas a la Asturiana (littleneck clams and rice in a white seafood sauce).

A basket of greaseless tostones and another of warm baguettes arrive at the table at the same time we do. We continue the carb loading with an order of mariquitas de plátano (plantain chips) from an extensive list of paper-thin, freshly fried tubers that includes yuca, potato and malanga.

Gazpacho Andaluz, the zesty classic from the Costa del Sol, arrives garnished with a single, succulent shrimp. The puréed mixture of green peppers, onion and tomatoes with touches of fine olive oil and vinegar is accompanied by a platter of the same vegetables finely diced for customized crunchiness.

My companion starts with more than a dozen wonderfully fresh anchovies served in a vinegary marinade, and is ready to order the brine-cured, Cantabrian variety for comparison purposes when I caution pacing to save room for our entrees.

These include one of the most authentic versions we've had of fabada Asturiana, the signature bean stew of the northwestern Spanish province of Asturias. We happily dig into a chafing dish piled high with creamy white faba beans, chunks of chorizo and morcillo (blood sausage) and slabs of salt pork, all perfumed with garlic, onion and saffron. Our other choice, the house specialty lubina a la plancha, brings fat pieces of grilled Chilean sea bass in a creamy white seafood sauce.

Desserts include almond and other cakes, house-made ice creams and Galician chestnuts floating in port or brandy or in a number of flans including pudín de queso crema, a cross between dense New York cheesecake and wobbly, traditional flan.

We settle this trip on queso crema, an intensely sweet, cream-cheese-based custard, and the whimsically named tocino del cielo (``heaven's bacon''), an egg-yolk-rich Cuban custard that is heavenly indeed.