Great Bolognese

It's amazing what good food you can get on Mission Street these days. The local vatos are still outside, some sleeping on the sidewalk, some selling product from an open door of a beat up old sedan, but the shops and restaurants are changing before our eyes. The Greats M-Nik and S-B took us to Mister Pollo today, which has nothing to do with chicken, but instead is a pop-up four-course prix fixe spot where the chef comes out and tells you where he got his mizuno and baby satsumas. This fetuccine bolognese was as good as Plotnik has ever tasted, including his own.

Amazing. Down the street there is now the "Fizzery," where they sell -- designer soft drinks! Soft drinks! For Mission District rent, they are selling soft drinks, and it's a big place. But you also see new Latino kitchens with linoleum tables, grandma in the kitchen and handwritten menus, and the old Irish bars don't seem to be slowing down.

Perhaps the stores are ahead of the neighborhood curve.  Personally -- Plotnik is somebody who doesn't think gentrification is all that bad -- up to a point. It will take a long, long time for the Mission to become Snowy Valley. Hopefully never. Meanwhile, the food is getting better and better.