I found a place with a menu filled with specialties—each and every item on it is special!

Señor Pollo is owned by Dixie Mabanta who loves to cook. He creates and recreates dishes and flavors over and over until he is happy with the result.

Eight months ago, Mabanta opened Señor Pollo, a hole in the wall with its own character, along Scout Rallos St., Quezon City.

The mouthwatering experience begins even before one enters the restaurant, as the aroma of roasted chicken draws you in. This is enough to make you focus on what to order as you survey the menu scrawled on a huge chalkboard.

Your order done, you take a steep staircase to a quaint dining area on the second floor. The food is brought to your table shortly by very quick and efficient servers.

The place is funky and interesting, its walls a mix of bricks, recycled wood and handpainted murals of Mexican and South American-inspired folk art.

Six years ago, Mabanta married a Colombian, Claudia Hernandez, and found inspiration from that part of the world where, he says, “everyone loves chicken and everyone has his own version of how to cook it. It’s like us, here, with our own versions of adobo.”

Mabanta describes Señor Pollo as a chicken restaurant with Latin influences. Its chicken is a combination and compilation of the best chicken dishes he has tasted during his frequent travels to South America.

On the menu is Señor Pollo Roast, a perfectly seasoned and roasted chicken served with a well-balanced chimichurri sauce. The chicken comes with side dishes—Colombian beans, fried plantains, Latin coleslaw, spicy rice, patatas bravas, mac and cheese and sweet potato mash.

From the chicken to the side dishes, what we had was equally good, very good.

Mabanta loves to see people happy as they eat, so he puts on the table an array of sauces meant to enhance the already tasty dishes: garlic sauce that is tasty, creamy, garlicky fresh, and the atomic sauce that is spicy with hints of acid.

The sauces as alternative to chimichurri perk up the palate, adding flavors. I saw people dipping their fries and plantains into it; some slathered it over rice and on their chicken.

Alive, mouthwatering, satisfying, every centavo well spent—these best describe my dining experience.

I was pleased with everything I ordered— from the chicken, quesadillas, lechon asado, the sides (five kinds), down to the iced tea made from scratch.

I will keep going back because the chili sauce tastes like fresh chilies, the garlic sauce like garlic, the chimichurri green and fresh, and the mac and cheese so cheesy. The food is true to form. It is what it should be. Flavorful. No pretensions.

Like the food, the ambiance is good, too—relaxed, a place where you can eat casually.

It is not Mabanta’s desire to be authentic—he says, “certain foods don’t translate well.”

What he is after is simply to provide a good place to eat, one with a street feel that is informal, casual, not expensive but serves decent food.

He believes that everything must start with a good product and that the enterprise should not be treated strictly as a business.

Mabanta enjoys mostly the research and development part and fondly calls himself the “chief ideas man.”

Mabanta’s wish is to build more dining places of character in unexpected places. He feels that these little restaurants add excitement and color to our dining scene.

His dream is to keep creating choices for the consumer, which won’t dent their pockets.

I was not fortunate enough to try the flan and chocolate dessert, though I was dying to, as everyone kept raving about it.

“Every day we try to make and do things right. We keep changing things, we try to improve them, wishing no more than to see people happy.”

His clients are pleased, apparently, for in the four months since they opened in QC, a second Señor Pollo opened in Makati.

And a month from now, Mabanta will launch another concept, a neighborhood Thai-Malaysian restaurant serving dishes that are not commonly known and served locally. Yet again something to look forward to!

Señor Pollo is at F-7 Building 49 Scout Rallos St., Brgy. Laging Handa, QC, tel. 3517235 and at 5769 Ebro St., Brgy. Poblacion, Makati, tel. 8316945

The author’s cooking class schedule is now available. For inquiries, call tel. 4008496, 0908-2372346, 0917-5543700 or 9289296.