Signs -- if we hadn't been there and didn't know -- that Diablo's Cantina is on the Strip: $9 for a house margarita, $4 for chips and salsa (and if we hadn't noticed that on the menu, we might have been prompted to say "Sure" when our waitress asked, "Would you like to start with chips and salsa?" and then found out too late that, unlike virtually every other Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas and, come to think of it, the rest of the country, they're not complimentary).

And all of that would be OK if the menu and the food were extraordinary, or even extra-anything. We kind of thought it would be; the fajitas were billed as "hot-rock style" and the poppers as being based on smoked jalapenos, so that would be two somewhat interesting twists on Mexican-American restaurant standards. We thought. (And, since Diablo's is from The Light Group, whose Fix at Bellagio and Stack at The Mirage are pretty good, it was plausible.)

But the poppers ($8 for a half-order, $16 for a full) were your standard poppers, found in virtually every other Mexican restaurant (or bar) in Las Vegas and, come to think of it, the rest of the country: your basic raw jalapenos, stuffed with cheese, breaded and fried. The accompanying ranch dressing did seem to have a slight smoky tinge so maybe that's what they're counting on, but the ordinariness of the poppers made our half-order seem, as Dorothy Parker once said of two people and a ham, like eternity.

And the fajitas. Of several varieties we chose the steak ($19), and the meat was pretty good, well-seasoned and tender and sauteed with peppers and onions, with warm flour tortillas and salsa, guacamole and sour cream on the side. But it was the "hot-rock" thing that had intrigued us; that sounded kind of novel. Instead, the fajitas turned out to be pretty much like those you'd find in virtually every other Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas and, come to think of it, the rest of the country (do you see a pattern here?) Turns out the hot rock was actually a hot skillet. Sure, the meat mixture sizzled. Just like it has been doing at Chili's since, oh, about the '80s.