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Chicago-Style Chinese Hot Dog Featured at New Fat Rice Bakery

By Paul Biasco | July 6, 2016 9:40am
 The Bakery at Fat Rice
The Bakery at Fat Rice
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LOGAN SQUARE — Logan Square hot spot Fat Rice opened the first phase of its long-awaited expansion Wednesday morning offering up sweet and savory pastries.

A Chinese bakery, called the Bakery at Fat Rice, is the first of the restaurant's planned additions.

“There are all kinds of things we’ve always wanted to share at Fat Rice but we didn't have the space," chef and co-owner Abe Conlon said. "The new bakery/petisco bar i s going to give us the chance to explore a new side of Fat Rice with a much more casual, grab-and-go feel."

The bakery, which opens each morning at 7, features pastries such as a Portuguese egg tart, an apricot and thyme tart, a pig bun with chorizo and a purple sweet potato sponge cake.

There's even a Chinese variation on the Chicago-style hot dog made with Vienna beef and "classic fixins." The hot dog bun is Conlon's take on a Chinese hot dog bun, a classic in many Chinese bakeries, and will run customers $4.

Drinks include Hong Kong style milk teas, carrot “milk” and mango “milk,” ginger coffee and tea, and teas from Rare Tea Cellar.

By night the 24-seat bakery will transform into Petisco, a stand-up bar that will serve Iberian-style small bites such as seafood escabeche, sardines and octopus salads.

The bakery and lounge expansion into the storefront directly next to the restaurant, 2957 W. Diversey Ave. has been in the works since February of 2015.

The second phase of that expansion will include a lounge called The Ladies' Room, which opens Friday.

The lounge originallys was a waiting room for Fat Rice. Starting Friday it will have extremely limited seating, wit reservations required, and a selection of cocktails, wines, Japanese whiskeys, cognac and Champagne. 

The dimly lit space is meant to resemble Chinese gambling halls and red light districts of Macau in the 19th and 20th centuries.

To top it all off, Fat Rice is adding two tasting menus that will be exclusive to the bakery portion of the restaurant each night fot larger groups.

The menus (show at the bottom of this article) will only be available in the new room.

Fat Race had a big 2016, having been named Restaurant of the Year during the annual Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence, a ceremony that's been described as the Oscars for Chicago's culinary and dining scene.

The honor came as a shock to co-owners Conlon and Adrienne Lo, having beat out El Ideas, Intro and Parachute for the top award.

The restaurant is also publishing a cook back titled "The Adventures of Fat Rice: Recipes from the Chicago Restaurant Inspired by Macau," which will be available Oct. 25.

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