Old Blinking Light is evidence that Highlands Ranch, the southern suburb that city slickers love to loathe, is gaining culinary momentum. It's also proof that Southwestern cuisine, a food fad that peaked a decade ago, is still alive and well, flourishing in a color-saturated dining room flanked by blinking candles and an impossibly large tin fan.

Joseph Wrede, a Food & Wine magazine Best New Chef winner and owner of Joseph's Table in Taos, N.M., is the consulting chef. Wrede's seasonally influenced and organically inclined menu slants toward the Southwest, though he also explores the epicurean sphere to maximize his reach.

And while he only occasionally visits the kitchen, his sous chef, Sergio Romero, is a highly competent and confident cohort.

He and Wrede must have realized, for example, that including a fried avocado ($5) on the menu would raise eyebrows. What a pleasant surprise to sink my teeth into the fresh flesh lightly encrusted with Japanese breadcrumbs, capped with pico de gallo and set off by a housemade blue corn tostada shell, puddles of fresh epazote oil and swishes of Mexican cream. It's a modern mosaic of textures and tastes.

Consider, too, the excellent shrimp and crab cocktail ($11), six plump crustaceans hunched over the rim of a highball glass pooling a brightly flavored, lime-jolted mix of sweet crab meat, diced tomatoes, onions and jalapeños. Or the astonishingly good guacamole ($3), flecked with cilantro and crowned with crumbles of queso fresco and queso cotija, two popular Hispanic cheeses. I wish, however, that the housemade chips weren't an additional $2. Or that the piquant salsas, a spicy roja and a tart tomatillo verde, also didn't ring in at $2 each. Free (or frugally priced) at most restaurants, chips and salsa here will set you back an excessive $6.

Additional shortcomings: The green chile stew, strewn with stringy cubes of lamb ($5 cup; $8 bowl), is not a stew at all but an insipid, weary soup that requires redirection. And while the stagey poblano chile relleno ($16) is certainly pretty to look at, it arrives stuffed with gummy risotto and sided with a ratatouille of sludgy vegetables.

Far better is the trio of flawlessly executed buffalo sliders ($8), grilled to a perfect medium-rare, topped with white cheddar and caramelized onions and sandwiched between soft, Little League-sized wheat buns. The julienned sweet potato fries that join in the union are excellent. So, too, are the duck fat fries ($4), a delicious thicket of crisp-edged tubers rendered in duck fat and matched with three dipping sauces, including a satisfyingly spicy chipotle aioli.

Heartier dishes include the seared pork tenderloin ($25), which peddles medallions of tender meat topped with an apple and poblano pepper-pelted chutney, and the stacked enchiladas ($18), which unearth a forestland of sautéed mushrooms - cremini, morel, chanterelle and button - tangling with a mix of Mexican and Italian cheeses. Another notable choice is the Baja- style fish tacos ($16), hugging grill- charred chunks of mahi-mahi, shredded cabbage and slivered rings of tomatillo, the flavors further serenaded by an airy avocado mousse.

The brick-oven pizzas ($12-$13) may seem like an oddity on a menu that celebrates the Southwest, but these thin-crusted wonderments shouldn't be missed, particularly the elegant pear, Gorgonzola, walnut and caramelized sweet onion pizza.

Service is unwaveringly professional and unfailingly knowledgeable, and the bartender, who makes a magnificent margarita, is equally adept at spinning and twirling a cutting board on his index finger, which makes for a theatrical show while you're waiting for a table.

Old Blinking Light

• Grade: B+

• Address: 9344 Dorchester St., Highlands Ranch

• Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. daily

• Food: Southwestern gussied up with global twists; brick-oven pizzas

• How much: $4-$12 starters; $5-$14 soups and salads; $1-$4 sides; $12-$29 entrees; $12-$13 pizzas

• Reservations: Suggested

• Noise: Moderate

• Information: 303-346-9797

• Parking: Free lot in front of the restaurant