For five years now, Manivanh, a smallish place on 24th Street near Hampshire, has been one of my very favorite neighborhood restaurants in town. It's a completely unremarkable-looking Thai joint unceremoniously dumped at the grimiest edge of the Mission District, out of step with the strip's bevy of taquerias, hair salons, and, more recently, art galleries and hipster donut stands. For three years, I lived two blocks away, not far from 24th and Utah, where Jack's Club cheerfully presides over the corner. Manivanh holds just over a dozen tables, half of them empty most nights. The servers frequently look as fried as Krispy Kremes, their eyes distant and glazed. Between orders, they crane their necks to stare up at the television hovering above the counter. One afternoon, when all the area liquor stores were closed for a holiday, the host sold me a few beers to-go without so much as a blink. Manivanh is not a hole-in-the-wall, some Bourdanian treasure where fears of gastrointestinal trauma accompany each tasty bite. The interior is clean and warm, even pleasant. The neighborhood is fine, even though the 24th Street drunks' hacking coughs rattle through the window panes and swaying grocery cart barges skitter along the sidewalk outside. Satay and pad thai don't spark the excitement food-obsessed city residents work up over tacos. Everyone has a favorite Thai lunch place socked away somewhere -- the stuff of cheap lunch specials and coconut-creamed ice teas in tall plastic cups. Manivanh is a true find, unusual precisely because it's so good yet so relentlessly unexceptional in its design and scope, a regular, everyday restaurant without a whiff of marketing mojo and no rugged street food cred. Few would think to sniff it out and even fewer would bother writing about it, but I beseech you all the same to discover it, to walk down 24th Street until you can clearly hear the hum and screech of 101. Look to your left, see the sign, sit down, and order the larb-ped.

Isn't it larb-ly?

Larb is not a sludge-metal band from Florida or a faintly embarrassing medical condition. Larb may actually be those things as well, but the larbs I know first-hand are meat salads: fish sauce-y melanges in innumerable lovely variations, popular throughout Laos as well as Thailand. Refreshing and bold, Manivanh's larb-ped -- minced duck, lettuce, mint, and red onion laced with a chili-flecked lemon dressing -- is heady, almost druggy in its deliciousness, unsettlingly, crazily flavorful -- a sweet, benevolent Klaus Kinski on the palette. In the past four months, I've taken three different groups of people to Manivanh, and every single neophyte has gone batty for this minor miracle of taste and texture. I wandered down with a friend on the eve of his flight back to Philadelphia and he, upon spooning up the last bit, wondered out-loud if he could pack a few orders to bring back to the city of brotherly love. "The duck -- it's like bacon, except somehow better," another friend remarked on the night of his conversion, reaching for a third helping, unsubtly trying to snag more than his fair share of the chewy, crispy bits. Manivanh's menu beckons with many very good things, like grilled pork, chicken with chiles, onion, and fresh basil, and fried bean cake with cashews and roasted curry paste. Yet this one dish -- the transcendent larb-ped -- sends the restaurant over the top, searing it into heart and memory. Again and again, I recommend Manivanh to anyone interested -- because I want others to know it and cherish it as well.

Still, a few weeks ago, in bed, watching the long-awaited "No Reservations: San Francisco" on my laptop, I was happy not to see forkfuls of that fine ducky goodness disappearing into Anthony Bourdain's gaping maw.

Over the course of that episode, he painted a broad strokes portrait of the San Francisco he wanted to hate, a city where the good stuff has to be pried out from beneath sheet-rock layers of weak Chez Panisse-y silliness. It's a pretty cool town, he seemed to say, so long as you keep it real among the hordes of smug, self-righteous yoga mat people telling you how to eat -- in his mind, villains more onerous than greedy landlords, creeps, loud-talking Muni lunatics, and fickle fault-lines.

His pal Zamir's meltdown in Romania, however bizarre and mortifying, was, as Bourdain might intone on a clips show voice-over, good television. Making fun of vegetarians in San Francisco is not. The tall, gray host is usually much more insightful than he was here, using food as a trusty lens through which to respectfully experience the ways people live around the world. He likes delving into the preposterous, the campy, and the down-and-dirty. When it comes to eating on camera, fried squeazel, pig's eyes, chicken asses, and seven-pound tortas are his ripe texts, ideal, semi-shocking stuff he can stretch into funny, alcohol-soaked, highly watchable lessons of cultural interest.

A pedestrian pleasure such as Manivanh wouldn't interest Bourdain, at least for the sake of his show. For that, I am thankful. I like my larb line-less, my beloved local gems broadcasted via whispers, not ear-splitting bellows from some perch on Foodie Mountain where he sits every Monday, leather-jacketed, hung-over, racked with indigestion, clutching his megaphone. That's It, the deli with the seven-pound torta, sits a block away from where I currently live. One day, it was my corner store, and, the next, I had to squeeze through a mob just to get a tall can from the cooler in the back.

It may not make for good television, but you can learn a lot about the way we live from something so mundane as a neighborhood restaurant and its way with one dish -- maybe not from Manivanh specifically, but from establishments like it. In my reality, of which I am, of course, captain, Manivanh serves the best Thai food in the city. The rest of the world doesn't have to agree. Manivanh's Yelp reviews are high, four stars, on average, with some disgruntled customers, as usual, chirping up to soil the spread. Interestingly, the gripes people air about Manivanh are often very specific and personal, super-subjective criticisms unbound by universally persuasive criteria. One reviewer complains about too many onions. Another bemoans the absence of white-meat chicken. A vegetarian whines about fish sauce in the silver noodles she'd thought were meatless, claiming that the waitress rolled her eyes when she shared her grievance, which Bourdain, had he been there, hovering in the corner like a spectral watchdog, would have done too. People are inclined to be inflexible about what they eat at cheap neighborhood restaurants, particular to the point of weird, preschool-y pickiness. We want what we want, when we want it, how we think it should be made -- usually the way we've learned to like it somewhere else. Eggplant is not my favorite vegetable, but I wouldn't tell Thomas Keller that if he prepared it for me. Yet if I ordered larb-ped at another Thai restaurant, and for some stupid reason, it arrived topped with a heaping portion of soggy eggplant, I might not go back to try anything else. In such restaurants, perhaps we're really seeking personal chefs challenged to solve the mysteries of our individual tastes without clues, or an unwavering Applebee's from the block, consistently supplying whatever specific eating experience it is we desire, wherever we go. For those who've learned to love it somewhere else, it takes a lot to go out of your way to try larb like this, to begin a new relationship with a familiar food rendered foreign all over again. But, if you do, as Rick said at the end of "Casablanca," as he strode off into the mist with Captain Louis, it might be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Manivanh
map
2732 24th Street
(between Hampshire and Potrero)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 552-3534

It was the season of sauce, it was the season of toppings. It was the spring of onions, it was the sausage of despair. We had pies before us, we had crusts before us.

No lesser authority than The New York Times says artisanal pizza is on the rise. Just last week, the Gray Lady blew the trend up, making a case for the elegantly appointed pizzeria as a cost-conscious diner's best bet amid rotten economic circumstances. In San Francisco, this sub-genre of the pizza form is currently encroaching on the Mission District's once-fior di latte-less expanse with great success. Pizzeria Delfina and Beretta are delicious examples of what's sizzling in Burritoland, though only the former would probably describe itself as a pizzeria first and foremost. Flour + Water just opened on Harrison in the last few months, serving pasta, salumi, and a familiar stripe of 'za: smallish, thin-crusted rounds decked out in classic and occasionally inventive combinations of toppings with a traditional bent and heavy, local-centric nods to seasonality. As if that weren't enough upscale crust and cheese to blanket a few square miles of coveted real estate, Pi Bar will soon start slinging (whole pies and cheese slices for, ha ha, $3.14) on Valencia near 25th, at a renovated space once home to Suriya Thai.

You might not have heard, but in Fall of 2008, Pizzeria opened its doors on a humming stretch of Valencia Street, not far from its intersection with 18th. As of press time, the establishment has garnered 45 reviews on Yelp, most of them quite positive. Yet, for all the times I've wandered past its wide windows, I've never seen a customer populating one of the dining room's handsome circular wooden tables. I've stared at the menu. I've contemplated the helpful photographs of Pizzeria's offerings pasted to the front window. I've watched cooks bustle, a waiter mop, and a manager meticulously refill and reposition jars of red pepper flakes on the long counter, but, never, not once, have I witnessed a person, sitting down, napkin on lap, actually tucking into a plate of anything.

And I've always wondered why. Location could not be the problem. Valencia is a major thoroughfare for night-time revelers and day-time shoppers. The product itself is not immediately suspect either. It's pizza, after all; everyone likes it. Unlike Beretta and Flour + Water, and to a lesser extent, Pizzeria Delfina, purveyors of an ostensibly fancier kind of pizza, the vibe is not glamorous. Apart from the wood oven used to bake them, the wares are not authentic but fairly pan-pizza in approach, though, in this age of hyper-fusion frenzy, that shouldn't deter the masses. You won't find habaneros, chicken tikka masala, or barbecue on pizza in Naples, but, these days, in the United States, thanks perhaps to the influence of California Pizza Kitchen, they're not exactly unusual toppings, and perfectly appropriate in the right context.

Pizzeria is also Halal. The pig is on a big muddy pedastal these days, and there's a chance the absence of house-cured prosciutto, guanciale, and an occasional trotter special throws potential customers off the scent. In addition, Pizzeria sells no alcohol. One Yelper reports brown-bagging some brew, but the restaurant doesn't specifically recommend doing so. Unless you're willing to ask and perhaps plead, the closest thing to a dinner buzz or a perfect pairing you'll get here will have to come in the form of a $2.50 soda. For many, this will prove a bigger sticking point than the pancetta non grata situation.

Could cost be the issue? Probably not, though, as far as pizza goes, Pizzeria's is not particularly inexpensive. In fact, its pizza margherita costs a dollar more than a similarly sized version made by Flour + Water, when the ingredients are obviously the same: tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella, and olive oil.

Generally speaking, when a restaurant's always empty, no passer-by wants to play guinea pig. Delivery customers write the majority of Pizzeria's Yelp reviews, and they tend to gush about speedy delivery and the endearing customer service, signs a few people have been curious enough to phone in orders, and the business owners are working hard to amass devotees, one at a time if necessary. Pizzeria is not open for lunch, which seems like a curious choice to make, especially if the owners want bodies in the dining room. Walk-in customers are more likely at lunch-time, especially on the weekends, when weary shoppers from other parts of town, quivering beneath the weight of new purchases, and stoned folks staggering in from Dolores Park make impulsive dining decisions based on whatever is in front of them.

Unlike Pizzeria, Flour + Water, the sort of sleek, self-styled "neighborhood" restaurant that employs a publicist, has been hot. A dozen local press mentions and reviews popped up within days of its opening, many before, and over 118 reviewers have since weighed in, many charmed by the food, a number irritated by the crowds and clientele, and more than a few disparaging of the hosts' demeanor. No one likes a line, and Flour + Water's perpetually snakes out the door like links of runaway sausages. In shaping their doughy vision, the heads behind Flour + Water actually followed a pizza principle not unlike what was outlined in the Times piece, figuring rustic fare in a lovely dark wood-enhanced setting might rake in diners trying to scale back on spending without sacrificing the level of ambience regular restaurant-goers tend to favor. According to Flour + Water's website, the restaurant's design and construction "are all about the mantra of the triple r: refurbished, repurposed and reclaimed," a triptych of buzzwords pretty much designed to make people feel as if they're sitting down to something real, hip, and happening, yet non-indulgent, and even -- gasp -- responsible.

Pizzeria and Flour + Water don't serve the same kind of pizza, so reviewing them in tandem wouldn't make sense. I'm interested in why one restaurant is full, and the other is empty. Does the press machine get behind whatever they're told to get behind by whomever gets to decide what should be gotten behind? Is herd mentality a lot of what's keeping Flour + Water packed tighter than a jar of oil-cured anchovies and Pizzeria as forlorn and lonely as a marinara-deprived breadstick? Does a Halal pizzeria without a pizzaiolo or a publicist stand a chance in this city?

On Saturday, I decided to seize the pizza by the box and give Pizzeria a real shot. At 5:15 p.m., I slowly and deliberately walked up to the door. I looked in through the smudged glass. I couldn't do it. The prospect of being the only person in the place stressed me out. A lopsided ratio of cooks to customers makes for awkward dining, a rigid, uncomfortable experience, like at a show, when a band dwarfs the crowd. I turned tail and scurried back to my apartment where, furious with my lack of courage, yet quite relieved, I immediately dialed in an order for delivery: a $12 small "Popeye" pizza (baby spinach, slow-roasted garlic, and red onion) to which I, for an extra buck, boldly added beef pepperoni. Minutes later, Pizzeria's pizza and I were face-to-face.

The mystery was over. The crust's bottom was black and blistery; the gnarled sides and top were beautiful, rutted in all the right places, tunnels of taste within, perfect pockets of air crunching, wafer-like, between teeth. The toppings were fine. I liked the cheese. The sauce was unmemorable. The thick slices of raw red onion didn't do much for me. I prefer them cooked, semi-pickled, or, if raw, very, very, very thinly slivered. The beef pepperoni didn't taste weird until I tried it cold on Sunday morning. Overall, Pizzeria makes a really good pizza in keeping with its intent: flavorful, timely, unpretentious, and very pizza-like. Everyone should go there ... or at least get something delivered.