With resident businesses Wholesome Bakery and Slow Jams, and lunch specials from Soul Cocina, La Victoria has fast become a Mission food hub. Venga Empanadas predated all three in La Victoria's commissary kitchen ― owner Manuel Godino provides a daily roster of meal-size Argentine-style turnovers as wide, roughly, as the span of your splayed fingers, thumb to pinkie. The chicken empanada comes packed with softly stringy meat, big chile flavor minus big heat, in pastry that manages to be both sturdy and surprisingly thin. Ask the counterperson to heat it for you.
Venga Empanadas at La Victoria Bakery 2937 24th St. (at Alabama), 642-7120
