Mr. Pollo in San Francisco

Chef Manny Torres Gimenez was washing off the newly-freed tables as I walked up from Mission’s 24th Street BART station across the street. He had time to mingle with the two other customers, whose heads were bent over their plates and otherwise unadorned table. Then he watched as his new recruit peeled and chopped yuccas and while carefully instructing him on the precise shape.

I already knew what I was going to order – the $15 chef’s tasting menu here is one of a kind, something I’ve never seen. (I have, for better or worse, eaten at hundreds of restaurants in the last couple years.) Chef quickly explained his fruit juice selection, although I could barely make out his somewhat muttered words, and I couldn’t decide, so I had two. The guanabana, or soursop, that is also known as corossolier, toge-banreisi, and a torrent of other names depending on what country you are picking it in, was a slightly thick and divinely sweet shake. The mora, Columbian blackberry with a distinct tartness, had a luscious berry-ness, overlaid with a brightness, akin to hibiscus cooler.

The tasting menu was divine, but I had to order an additional cheese arepa ($1.50) to taste Chef’s Venezuelan-style staple. He offered his recipe for the arepa dough as he brought by a little fried plantain with fresh cojita cheese for me to sample: mix harina pan (ground white corn) together with a roux-like sauce of butter, sugar, and salt, to form a dough, roll into rounds and pan fry, then stuff. A masterful butcher himself, he offers goat, lamb, beef, or pork in addition to the cheese filling choice. Often there’s an arepa included in the tasting menu, but not today.

The show stopper was fried yucca on top of braised rapini, with fresh sorrel salad and roasted chiogga beets, were gifted with local bay scallops and radicchio grilled on a black salt brick, then drizzled with a verdant aioli, or salsa de ajo. And it was just the second course (preceded by a crispy beef and potato empanada).

Then came a grilled, head-on rock shrimp on a bed of steamed garlic-y rice, and sumptuous black trumpet mushrooms, dressed with chunky avocado and yellow tomato salsa. The tender morsel and its cooking juices melded the flavors perfectly.

The final course was a house-made chorizo meatball, on top of roughly pureed squash adjacent to al dente purple Peruvian potatoes. For plain potatoes these were gems, not only were they cooked in a manner that retained their color (I’ve over-boiled them before and noted the significant loss of purple if submerged in boiling water for too long), but the subtle addition of some sort of vinegar and salt made them much more interesting than expected.

This chef, his food, his kitchen, and his ideas are vastly inspiring. He had (or made) time to tell me his story and add history and nuance to the dishes he brought out. He swung from the world of four-dollar-sign menus, describing his life like a sailor, always working and moving from place to place, to owning and operating his own place. He even painted the walls, and is responsible for the slightly-akimbo door. He’s teaching those few he works with, and he’s mastering the art of surprise. After all, it is truly haute food that is accessible for those who would have otherwise had to save for months, even years, to snag a table at places like Coi, where he previously worked. People who have lived in the Mission neighborhood for generations can afford this fancy food. My total – an out-and-out feast – was $25 before tip.

It is beautifully prepared, and mixes authentic ingredients and ideas with what Chef brings back from the early morning markets. I’m still not quite sure how he does it, but I know he’s not afraid of rolling up his sleeves and doing what it takes to prove the point – it is possible.

Although I highly recommend you put your meal in your chef’s hands (dietary requirements providing), there are also arepas, empanadas, and chacapas, and an assortment of sides. Whatever you order, don’t skip the fruity drinks, especially if you’re a produce geek like me and relish the chance to have unique things like lulo citrus… May his first year in business become the first of many, and the spread of a new, accessible way to taste the freshest seasonal ingredients prepared in richly imaginative, and at once authentic ways.

Good Idea

Play with your food. Chef Manny doesn’t have a huge food storage space and he is so inventive and creative with flavor combinations that he inspires flexibility and efficiency. Use the odds and ends in your fridge or something fresh from the market instead of getting a specific list of ingredients that match nicely to a prearranged recipe. If it’s the height of sprint time fava bean season, use those instead of peas. Adapt recipes for seasonal ingredients. Swap squash for potatoes, rapini for broccoli, milk for cream. Draw outside the lines. Chances are you’ll come up with something new and delicious, and you’ll have less food waste in your home kitchen.

Deets

Across from 24th Street BART, (or Muni 14, 48, 49), 2823 Mission St., San Francisco, 415.375.1185, Open Mon-Sat 11a-3p, 5p-12a, www.mrpollosf.com, Cash Only