THIS UNDER-THE-RADAR POP-UP PUTS A BAY AREA TWIST ON COLOMBIAN CUISINE
Juan Melendez and Stephanie Nguyen started their pop-up, Mezclá Eats, in 2019 to share their love for Colombian cuisine. Melendez was born in Colombia and has more than twenty years of cooking experience; Nguyen is Vietnamese and has also worked in restaurants for more than two decades. The couple serves Colombian dishes with twists inspired by the Bay Area’s diverse food scene, and the Mezclá Eats menu is always evolving. Past creations include yellow fried rice tossed with sofrito and chorizo; banh mi filled with carne asada; and arepas topped with pork belly sisig.
Melendez says the inspiration for his recipes comes on the spur of the moment. “A lot of the time I’m inspired by what I’m craving and start there,” Melendez says. “I just cook from the heart and my gut and go for it.” Fusion cuisine is challenging to get right; it’s easy to get too ambitious and toss together ingredients and techniques that don’t harmonize. But Melendez avoids creating jumbled dishes by layering flavors and textures that maintain their identities in the final product. Although many of his dishes can be categorized as street food in that they’re eaten by hand, the presentation is often something you’d expect from an upscale restaurant. Every dish is vibrant and thoughtfully adorned. The menu at Mezclá changes every three months, but many popular items remain in the rotation.
For example, Mezclá’s birria patacones marry Colombian plantain chips with the popular Mexican stewed meat. The patacones are made by frying chunks of green plantain, smashing them paper thin in a tortilla press, and refrying them until they’re crisp. Then they’re loaded with beef birria, avocado, aioli, pickled onions, pickled chiles, and micro herbs. It may seem like a lot to stack onto one bite, but Melendez keeps the textures and flavors in balance.
Mezclá’s yuca fries are also unlike the fries you find at your average drive-thru. Yuca, known as cassava, produces fries that are fluffy on the inside with a crisp, rugged exterior. They’re cut into large slabs and served with a side of aji amarillo beer cheese sauce for dipping. Melendez also gives salchipapas, a humble dish of made with French fries topped with hot dog slices, the respect it deserves, transforming it into the ultimate bar food. He makes his fries with Kennebec potatoes, prized for their starch levels and low water content. Hot dogs get split into a star shape and fried until they’re as crisp as bacon. Then, the fries are coated with an aji amarillo cheese sauce and a smoky chipotle “good shizz” sauce. The richness of the dish is broken up by a handful of citrus slaw and pickled fresnos.
The Mezclá tacos best encapsulate Melendez’s experimental approach. The chicken, rockfish, and oyster mushroom tacos are all served on a creation Melendez dubbed an arepa-tilla. It’s a tortilla made with the pre-cooked corn meal used to make arepas. The result is a pale, delicate hybrid that has less stretch and chew than a traditional tortilla. Nước mắm dressing is used to amplify the fishiness and savoriness of the beer-battered rockfish and oyster mushroom tacos. Each is finished with a fruity mango slaw and a pile of fried rice noodles.
Although it’s a pop-up, Melendez still provides restaurant-style customer service. He walks around tables asking customers how they’re enjoying the meal. And if you have any questions, he’s thrilled to talk about his food. Melendez and Nguyen are working on getting a food trailer, but for now, you can find them under a pop-up tent at events and bars from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. They’re eager to continue to grow their business. “We have done everything from corporate catering, birthdays, and even weddings,” Melendez says. “There’s no stopping now.”
Follow Mezclá Eats on Instagram for the latest on upcoming events.