SEEING MEXICO ON 1,200 CALORIES A DAY

Where does a restaurant reviewer go on vacation? To a fat farm, of course, for seven waist-trimming days of no salt, no fat, no red meat, “no nothing,” said one fellow diner staring forlornly at his dinner that first night at Rancho La Puerta, just across the border in Tecate (home of Tecate beer, though there wasn’t--heaven knows--any beer at the ranch).

On the plate (a small plate, so that dinner would look bigger) sat a single naked enchilada the size of a Tiparillo and a child’s handful of brown rice. Never mind that the simple baked apple for dessert was very satisfying and the vegetable soup was fine, too. We joked about the food like kids at camp or in the college cafeteria, more for camaraderie than as serious critics. We had come, after all, not to eat.

There were a few first-timers, to be sure, who were seriously disappointed by the fare, expecting haute spa treatment--breakfast in bed with a flower on the tray, luncheon of poached salmon, dinner of roast veal and “calorie-conscious” Grand Marnier souffle a la Sonoma Mission Inn. This wasn’t that kind of place. Instead, it served more or less vegetarian health food reminiscent of the output of certain ‘60s Berkeley kitchens: squares of what appeared to be meat loaf but were lentils and ground nuts; cabbage rolls stuffed with cabbage; wheat-flour pizza crust; steamed vegetables, brown rice, barley; and eggplant stews.

The truth was that although we were consuming about 1,000 to 1,200 calories a day and expending a lot more with predawn-to-dusk mountain hiking, aerobic circuit training, swimming, tennis, weight-lifting, yoga and more, most of us were never hungry. Not once. And if we were, there were always massages, herbal wraps, facials, manicures, pedicures and blazing evening fires in the fireplace to console us.

Breakfast and lunch were buffet affairs--scrambled eggs (sometimes with scallions) cooked hard and soft; hot cereal con leche; boiled eggs; prunes (a spa necessity); papaya, oranges, grapefruit; whole-grain bread. The first morning, my initial taste of the much-touted Rancho La Puerta bread sat in my mouth like a piece of Beaverboard. Had the friends who had raved about it been nuts? Brainwashed?

But as the week went on, the bread began to taste better. Was I, too, brainwashed? Was it a delusion of starvation? Or had my jaded taste buds, given a rest, become so attuned to natural flavors that I could taste each and every different grain? Has any breakfast tasted as delicious as a medium-cooked boiled egg mixed with some of the ranch’s killer hot sauce (tomatoes, cilantro and chile peppers)? This, after beholding the pink dawn from the top of a neighboring peak on the morning of my first mountain hike.

Lunch was the best meal there, especially when it was a fresh fruit salad bar, which could have been every day as far as I was concerned. The buffet was big as a small runway paved with nicely cut fresh fruit, some of it grown right on the ranch--kiwi, banana, grapes, papaya (exquisitely juicy, peerless with a squeeze of fresh lime), apples, pears, pineapple and wonderful first-of-an-early-season peaches.

Did I miss a cocktail before dinner, Brie and a cracker, steaks medium rare, French bread and dessert? Yes, I did, and so it was that on the night before the last day, I went with some like-minded souls into Tecate to the town’s fanciest restaurant--a barren storefront by usual standards which that night seemed a veritable L’Orangerie--for what had been rumored to be the world’s best Mexican food.

It wasn’t, we all agreed, but there were other consolations. This was the night of Pasetto’s free Margaritas, made with some of the vilest tequila I’d ever encountered--but effective nonetheless--and just right with the fresh chips and hot sauce even hotter than the ranch’s. And then there were the fresh char-broiled shrimp, five of them, each as big as the first night’s enchilada. What was it that made them and the white rice and sliced carrots with them such gustatory delights? Why, that old devil, melted butter, of course.

Rancho La Puerta, Box 69, Tecate (619) 478-5341. From $750 per week, all meals included.

Pasetto, Liberty Street, Tecate. Dinner for two, food only $10-$25. Visa accepted.