FAT RICE
2957 W Diversey Ave, Chicago, IL 60647
Type of food: Macanese
What brought you here:
Macanese food is, in our opinion, totally an underexplored cuisine in the United States. Choosing to eat here when we were in Chicago was a must, given our natural gravitation toward Asian food. Macanese food is a blend between Chinese and Portuguese influences. However, some of its culinary history has been said to be deeply rooted even by influences from Brazil, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. We're always excited to find a place where we can appreciate exotic flavors, and some have described Macanese as the "culinary mutt." With that idea alone, we were intrigued.
Ambience:
Small space, casual. A lot of communal seating and bar seating. We saw people bring their kids there, so I'd say kid friendly? We snatched the earliest reservation, but our cousin (shout out to Jamee for taking us btw, woot!) who has dined before said it can get pretty packed and noisy at night.
What we ordered:
Sardinhas furosos
Chili prawns
dry fried cauliflower
Daily fried rice (rotating chef selection)
Piri piri chicken
Our favorite dish ordered & why?
“The daily Fried rice,” which was Vietnamese inspired that day! Favorite because, TEXTURES. Growing up we are so used to quick tossed fried rice. But this was not your average fried rice: peanut dukkah, lettuce, thai basil, Vietnamese mint, jalapeno, and aioli. We will NEVER say no to adding aioli in our rice!
What will we order next time?
The "FAT RICE!" We know, we’re just as surprised as you that we didn’t eat the FAT RICE at FAT RICE. We had the smaller, though still every bit of decadent, “rotating daily Fat Rice.” Our waiter described the FAT RICE as a pretty hefty serving to share. It probably could have been the bulk of our meal alone, but we wanted to try more dishes, and of course, save room to try their bakery desserts next door!
