senor chicken...

The Brians took me to dinner at Mr. Pollo. OH MY GOD, do you know about Mr. Pollo? For $20 and cramped quarters, we got 4 amazing courses of delicious, gourmet, beautifully presented Colombian-inspired food in a tiny spot at 24th and Mission.

The chef, Manny, apparently buys and prepares everything himself. And there was one, hardworking and charming server. The soundtrack was almost exclusively 90's hip hop, and the whole space is smaller than our kitchen. Anyway, don't tell anyone I told you because the impression I got from the Brians is that the cool kids want to keep this for themselves, but it's been written about a lot.

Mr. Pollo is not for everyone, as the whole seating/timing process is weird. I don't know that I'd recommend Mr. and Mrs. Spotswood swing by for dinner. Mr. Pollo's staff tries to seat all 15 seats at the same time. The Brians and I tried our luck at 8pm, and were told to expect a phone call in 15 minutes. Lo and behold, they called exactly 14 minutes later, we arrived back to an empty restaurant, and 12 other people waiting to be seated. Every so often, folks would pop in, see they were in the middle of a dinner service and leave, I assume to come back later.

The process might seem a little intimidating, just because it's so non-traditional, but the chef and server were SO sweet and warm, that you should just pop in and ask what the deal is. They're cool about it, and cool in a way that doesn'y make you feel uncool.

Which is what cool really is anyway...