I ATE AT the same place two days in a row, so I figured I may as well make like a real restaurant reviewer and write it up. San Miguel is a bright, clean, colorful Mission Street joint specializing in Guatemalan grub. Far as I can tell, it's absolutely authentic, but I've never been to Guatemala. I don't think I'd ever even been to an all-Guatemalan restaurant before this.

My friend Greebie, on the other hand, has been everywhere, including Guatemala. He's one of those people who knows how to say things like entonces, so I'm always proud to eat with him at Spanish-speaking restaurants. San Miguel was his idea, but he didn't like it as much as I did, maybe because he's been to Guatemala. Or maybe he just ordered wrong.

He got the hilachas (pronounced high-latch-as), which is shredded beef, potatoes, carrots, and string beans in a "special red sauce." And by "special" they mean it tastes like the inside of a can of tomatoes. Curiously, the thing I got, pepian (pronounced peppy-Ann), looked a lot like the hilachas, only with chicken instead of beef. The sauce, or broth (it was pretty soupy), looked a lot like the "special red sauce," only it tasted about 10 times better because it was a "homemade seed sauce," containing, among other things, crushed pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, almonds, and peanuts.

I'm a pretty seedy guy, as anyone who has ever loaned me their car will attest, grumblingly, cleaning sunflower spits out of the dashboard and seats and sometimes even the engine. I loved the seed sauce. Greebie preferred the pepian to the hilachas too. You could tell because we swapped bowls back and forth throughout the meal, and whoever had the hilachas did all the talking while the other guy slurped and burped and nodded a lot.

Both bowls were piled with plenty of cilantro and came with sides of rice and a big bunch of little corn tortillas. No chips. They don't do chips in Guatemala, which is a shame because their salsas rock. Two kinds: one hot hot hot, and one mild. The hot one reminded me of that green Peruvian salsa I love so much. True, it was tomato-based and in every other respect entirely different, but it had that same edibility-in-spite-of-superspiciness factor that has you scrambling around turning over the table looking for things to put it on. You can't put salsa on soup. You can, but it sinks in and gets lost. Luckily there were a whole hell of a lot of those tortillas. And rice. And spoons.

So after one visit the jury was – how do you say it? – well, hung. Out? Split? I don't know, but that's not why I went back. I went back because I had to find out about a thing called cak-ick, which is "authentic and special" turkey soup, only served on Saturdays and Sundays.

The next day was Saturday. I love turkey soup.

This time I had with me Crawdad, Phenomenon, and Deevee, so that gives me something to say about some other things too, such as ceviche de camarones, lime-juiced shrimp all mixed up with tomatoes, cilantro, onions ... in other words, salsa. It was excellent. Same goes for the beef soup. A deep, dark, salty broth afloat with big chunks of beef still on the bone, potatoes, carrots, and a chunk of corn on the cob cooked to the exact right doneness. How often does that happen in soup?

Cak-ick, the traditional (and special) turkey soup, had a little less going on in it: two big beefy pieces of turkey in a very smooth, rich, delicious, green-oniony broth. Side of rice, and also a chuchito, which is something like a tamale – kind of bland by itself, so I dumped it in the soup and let it swim with the turkey, dumpling-like.

Everything was great, but everything any of us ordered either time was nine-something. Why? Especially since we're talking about bowls of soup, basically. Authentic and special or otherwise, soup is soup, and unless the bowl is two-and-a-half-gallons deep, nine bucks is a couple bucks too much to pay for soup, you ask me. Ask Chava.

Well, atmosphere is worth something, and I'll give them one of those bucks for the incessantly cheerful marimba music and for the oddball decor in general. The corrugated tin ceiling is hung with rows of dangling doodads, including hats, carved wooden totem pole slingshots, shakers, cute little baskets and buckets. Taxidermied animals. Almost every inch of available wall space is occupied by colorful photos, paintings, souvenir machetes, et cetera. The chairs are all different colors. Walking into the place is like walking into a kaleidoscope. So I'll give them a dollar for atmosphere.

And the service was helpful and friendly – but that goes into the tip, so I still don't know what to do with the other dollar.

San Miguel. 3263 Mission (at 29th St.), S.F. (415) 641-5866. Mon.-Tues. and Thurs.-Fri., 5-11 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 12:30-10 p.m. Takeout available. Beer. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.