The Weather's Gonna Get Nasty. Wrap Yourself in Chava's Caldo de Pollo

Jonas T./Yelp

More reliable than a space heater?

​Seven years ago, a fire ravaged the original Chava's on 18th and Shotwell. The restaurant's chilaquiles, fresh tortillas, and machaca con huevos had many devotees -- including, if one perky Yelp-er is to be believed, Cheech Marin, who supposedly raved about Chava's back when he used to shoot Nash Bridges on location. We learned about Chava's in 2003, not long after the fire. We were bleary, exhausted, and aching, trying desperately to fight off an entrenched virus. An acquaintance swore by its caldo de pollo as a cold season curative, so we shuffled ten blocks and found out the restaurant had been shuttered.

Chava's has been back for several years. The current location -- Mission Street between 24th and 25th -- is livelier but possibly problematic. With La Taqueria posted up on the same stretch of pavement, potential customers may be lured away -- which is a shame, because Chava's is no taqueria. Last week, sick once more, and despondent that a certain local chain of Chinese restaurants wouldn't deliver a $15 order, we stopped in to pick up some soup. As we waited, a woman selling flores whisked past our table, cackling into her cell phone between pitches. A man in a half-buttoned blue cowboy shirt and a gigantic white hat ate birria and sipped a glass of Inglenook Chardonnay at the counter.

The cashier gave us chips, salsa, and guacamole, and -- after 15 minutes -- a large sack of various parcels to take home. We walked back to the apartment and excavated: one quart-sized plastic carton containing tomato-flecked broth; cylinders of unpeeled carrot; potato hunks; squash; about a third of a chicken's worth of meat and bones; one small cup of rich, seasoned rice; three foil-wrapped corn tortillas, warm and fluffy; one foil packet of chopped raw onion, lemon wedges, and cilantro; and a really tiny cup of a potent-smelling rust-colored compôte. The onions softened in the broth; the lemon cut through the salt and gave the chile heat a tangy new dimension. After a few tentative dabs, we poured in all of the compôte. Thirty minutes later, we limped toward bed, our head bathed in a soft nimbus of radiating warmth. The rice, most of the chicken, and a tortilla headed to the fridge -- only to re-emerge eight hours later, for breakfast.

Chava's 2839 Mission (at 24th St.), 282-0283