It didn't last in Etna, and it didn't last in Carnegie. Munch is praying for mercy and benevolence from the ethnic food gods in hopes that Rivas, a Nicaraguan restaurant, can make a profitable go of it now that it has moved to the South Side, on East Carson Street.

Heck, if the ethnic food gods demanded it, and if it guaranteed the restaurant would stick around for the next 10 years, Munch would even make an animal sacrifice. Does anyone know where Munch can get a live chicken?

No?

What about a goat?

Rivas, 601 E. Carson St., South Side, is open 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; 412-381-8585. BYOB, salsa dancing and music on Saturday nights.

Want to be an FOM? Have a tip for Munch? Write to munch@post-gazette.com or search for "Munch von Munchausen" on Facebook.

Munch was familiar with the old Rivas spot in Carnegie, a tropical-colored storefront that almost never had anybody in it. At least not the couple of times Munch went. If you've ever had the urge to eat dinner inside a sarcophagus, this was a close approximation. Dinner at the old Rivas was always a bittersweet event. The food was delicious, but surely the place couldn't survive on such limited patronage.

Another restaurateur might have succumbed, but the Rivas family is dedicated to find the right place and the right menu (for you geography studs out there, Rivas is both the family name and the name of a city in Nicaragua). When their Etna restaurant was flooded by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan, Angela Rivas and family moved to Carnegie. When that didn't work, they found a storefront in the South Side. Rivas opened there just a few weeks ago.

Munch and pals made a lunchtime trip and were the only customers, an ominous portent. Good sightlines, though. It gave Munch a chance to soak in the decorative appointments -- lots of red, a few plants, a bit dark. They've toned down the beachy neon of the Carnegie location, which is just fine with Munch, who has never been much of a beach person, anyway. All that fresh salt air makes Munch kind of nauseous.

Filipino Friend of Munch (FFOM) laid waste to the cerdo a la plancha ($11.50), a perfectly cooked pork filet topped with a tangy-salty-peppery sauce. Muy sabrosa, she said, which roughly translates into "a flavor party on my tongue." Or so she says. Munch took four years of French. Might as well have learned Esperanto.

Our ringer, Puerto Rican Friend of Munch (PRFOM), ordered his usual, a dinner-sized portion of churrasco ($14.95), flank steak dressed in herbs, onions and garlic. Capitol-Bound Friend of Munch (CBFOM) loved the arroz a la valenciana ($10.75), essentially Nicaragua's version of paella, chicken with chopped vegetables in rice with mildly spicy sauce.

Munch's pork-and-rice lunch special, cerdo con papas ($6.25), came with fried plantains, rice, potatoes and a milky, almost sweet seafood soup ($4.95), which was passed around the table for everyone to sample (well, more grabbed than passed). Nicaraguan food as a rule is sweeter than Mexican food, although the traditional Nicaraguan side salad, which accompanies many dishes, is spicier than you'd expect.

Everybody had their quibbles, mostly ethnocentric ones. FFOM insisted that Filipinos, not Nicaraguans, prepare plantains more deliciously. PRFOM bragged that Puerto Ricans, not the Nicaraguans, make the best churrasco chimichurri around. CBFOM, who has been an insufferable boob since his promotion, even claimed that the Nicaraguan restaurants in D.C. have nicer silverware. "The forks in Washington, I believe, have four tines, not three," he said.

Let's not start World War III, OK people?

It's hard to know where a Nicaraguan place fits in the Pittsburgh restaurant landscape, where the non-Mexican Latino restaurants can be counted on two hands (and this is probably why Rivas also features some Mexican staples on its menu). You'd have to think that it stands a better chance of survival on East Carson than it did in Etna or Carnegie. Still, Rivas is in that weird 10-block no-man's land between Station Square and Brewski's, where the South Side begins. Mantini's Woodfired is now doing a brisk business in its shiny new digs six blocks away, but when it opened at 601 E. Carson St. five years ago -- the same address Rivas now occupies -- it didn't last.

But you know what would help Rivas last? Maybe if you went and ate there every once and a while. It would be a shame if the Rivas family was forced to pack up once more, for good.