La Calaca Comelona (“The Hungry Skeleton”) has—by a fair margin—the most exciting menu of any Mexican restaurant in Portland. The multi-roomed restaurant feels like a folk art gallery, with deep red walls and evocative Mexiphernalia everywhere. Gentle yellow light emanates from spiky hanging sun lanterns; Day of the Dead skeletons are sprawled across the ceiling; piñatas watch over the room. The bar in back could easily have been transplanted from a Mexican beach town.

The obsession with authenticity is codified in an essay on La Calaca Comelona’s menu about why burritos aren’t served, and it’s spot-on. In Mexico, the only thing actually called a “burrito” is a thinly rolled tortilla around machaca, with no other fillings, and it’s mostly found in Sonora. (The big, stuffed burrito is a California invention. Not that there’s anything wrong with California inventions.)

The menu follows through on the promise of escapism. Chiles en nogada, one of our favorite traditional Mexican preps, are made well here, employing smoky pasilla peppers rather than poblanos. We also appreciate the appearance of taquitos dorados de requesón (crispy taquitos with soft white cheese and epazote leaf), and chapulines (grilled grasshoppers) with chili flakes, lime juice, and tortillas. We like “manita de nopal con camarón,” a plate of teensy-weensy shrimp resting on a bed of credible cactus strips that get a nicely un-slimy char.

Unfortunately, there are frequent execution problems here, beginning with the sickly-sweet margarita, which tastes mostly of sour mix. The cocktail list is excessively tropical-umbrella-ish, full of sweet-tooth drinks like the “afrodisiaco”—tequila, rum, orange juice, and grenadine. We got quite excited about the appearance of enchiladas morelianas on the menu—we were hoping for that characteristic deep red smokiness that comes from guajillo chile—but La Calaca’s version was overloaded with tasteless cabbage, nacho-style pickled jalapeños, dry chunks of chicken, and low-quality sour cream; the dish, although enormous, just didn’t have any punch to it. Green mole en pipián, made with pasilla, is a better choice, but we question the overuse of bell peppers and lettuce.

Keep it simple, and you’re better off. Plain cheese quesadillas are made from fresh corn tortillas, as they should be, and they’re the real deal. Ditto for sopes. You could just come for a drink, and have a great time. Even if the execution in the kitchen often doesn’t live up to the promise of the menu, La Calaca is the sort of place that just lures you back again and again for its festive and authentic charm. And grasshoppers.