It seems like the kind of place they don’t make much anymore, a chef-led neighborhood restaurant that’s mid-range in price, anytime casual and full of character.

But then, I’m not sure anyone has made a restaurant just like Hot & Soul , except for the couple who did just that once before.

Hot & Soul is a tiny restaurant with a lot to unpack. But the main thing is that each meal has brought something I didn’t see coming and made me eager to return.

The menu reads as if it was combined from at least three different types of restaurants.

One meal started with shrimp ceviche that could’ve come from South America, coated in the fruity warm heat of aji amarillo chilies with crackers stained black with squid ink to scoop it up.

There was a clutch of lumpia, the tightly bound, crunchy-cris

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