Centro Cocina Mexicana

My 401(k) was getting bludgeoned. My buyout buddies had left the building. And my neighborhood was being invaded by dust blowers, which among the overly polite are better known as leaf blowers.

I was grouchy and badly needed a lift, so I returned to two restaurants whose bright designs, sunny servers and jovial food almost invariably leave me smiling.

Centro Cocina Mexicana
This was an unprecedented and inauspicious start. At 8 p.m., not a single bar stool at Centro was occupied. Granted, it was a weekday. But with neither the baseball playoffs nor a presidential debate under way – or even vice presidential – the bar should have had someone.