Chancho Villa

At the major crossroads of Highland Park, perched at one corner of a supermarket parking lot and across the street from the local savings and loan, the Highland Diner was once a neighborhood coffee shop like all neighborhood coffee shops, a place to get a quick doughnut or a luncheon special, or to linger for hours at the counter over a weak cup of joe. As with most restaurants of its kind, many customers had been coming in twice a week for decades, expecting the counterman to know just how they liked their eggs. And though the restaurant grew old along with its patrons, most of those people didn’t seem to mind.

A couple of months ago, locals began to notice something of a change. Although the restaurant served burgers and fries as always, the waitresses handed out two sets of menus, the second of which listed exotic Central American dishes instead of pancakes and chef’s salads. One day, the grody old booths were reupholstered in brilliant mauve vinyl, and the restaurant seemed cleaner than it had in years. You could get sweet fresh-pineapple drinks or Pepto-pink chicha as well as Diet Coke. The old sign out front was taken down, and replaced with a new one: the La Plancha Grill (somewhat redundantly, because plancha actually means “grill” in Spanish). And some of the longtime patrons, the ones who hadn’t changed their order in something like 30 years, were actually cajoled by the new owner, Milton Molina, to try some of the brave, new food.

“Don’t worry, sir, madam,” he’d say, “You’re not in Nicaragua and you’re not in the Twilight Zone. This is still the U. S. of A.”

In one of the least-likely locations imaginable, Molina had brought back to life the long-lost Nicaraguan restaurant La Plancha.

Back before Cha Cha Cha colonized an East Hollywood pupuseria , back before Michelle Pfeiffer discovered La Serenata de Garibaldi, La Plancha was famous, as famous as any poorly situated Latin-American restaurant can be anyway, for its fine tamales and citrus-marinated grilled meat. The foodie world beat its way to La Plancha, even as it looked around and noticed that there weren’t all that many Nicaraguans in the house.

The Times sang the wonders of its pechuga de pollo ; Los Angeles magazine liked the grilled pork; Gault-Millau praised its giant nacatamals . One Los Angeles restaurant guide, published in the mid-’80s, suggested that La Plancha might be the best ethnic restaurant of all. And none of them failed to mention Molina, who invariably hovered over your table and lectured you on the excellence of his cuisine. Then the place seemed to disappear, or at least shrink to a sideline of Molina’s scruffy pupuseria next door. It even dropped out of Zagat.

So it was almost a relief last week to once again become a victim of Molina’s harangue, even though we’d complained that half the Nicaraguan menu--which was imported whole from the Ninth Street joint--was unavailable. I wanted a plate of salpicon .

“You have had lomo asado , you have had chancho frito , you have had pechuga de pollo ?”

I lowered my head and nodded a sheepish yes.

“Well, have them again,” he barked. “ Chancho frito . . . how could a man get tired of a dish like that? You will have chancho frito , with both tostones and fried sweet platanos . You will start with my fried cheese. And you will love every bite.”

Well, OK. Chancho frito .

There may not be a lot of difference between most of the dishes here, but it’s all pretty good: thick citrus-marinated steak (a little dry) or skewered citrus-marinated steak; thin citrus-marinated carne asada ; juicy citrus-marinated pork loin; tasty citrus-marinated chicken breast, all grilled until they acquire a sweet carbon tang--La Plancha is not the place to come for rare meat--all spicy with black pepper, and all served with fluffy white rice and a powerfully tart shredded-cabbage salad and a mound of delicious fried plantains. (Of course, you will have fried cheese, blistered and golden, to start, or possibly empanadas made with fried sweet plantains stuffed with crumbly Mexican cheese.)

In one variation, called Momotombo after a volcano, the plantains and sliced carne asada are arranged in picturesque patterns on a mountain of rice, which is quite attractive in its own way but doesn’t change the basic La Plancha taste all that much.

Chancho frito , of course, involves peppery, blackened nubs of citrus-marinated pork hidden under a pile of the shredded-cabbage salad, salt mixing with tart, bitter with sweet, with both tostones and fried sweet platanos radiating from the center like thick spokes from a mountain-bike wheel. Chancho frito has a lot of Vitamin C for a plate of pork. Chancho frito is the sort of thing you don’t stop eating until the plate is clean, the sort of thing somebody is always frying up in “The Mambo Kings.” I wasn’t tired of it. I did love every bite.

La Plancha Grill, 6207 York Blvd. (at Figueroa), Highland Park, (213) 255-1416. Open daily, 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Takeout. Lot parking. No alcohol. American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $12-$20.