- Michael Gebert
- Steamed “ten karat” shrimp dumplings at Fat Rice
Many people looking at the line ahead of them at Fat Rice, Chicago’s only Portuguese-Macanese-hipster-Asian-fusion restaurant, have surely wished the place would expand. Now it is—but instead of adding space, it’s adding hours with a dim sum brunch on weekends. Which includes some classic Cantonese-style dumplings, as well as things found only in Macau.
The lineup includes dumplings but also a bowl of congee with Manila clams and bacon, a Macanese take on European food called minchi (“essentially a not-so-sloppy sloppy joe served over rice,” says Conlon), and two different versions of lacassa, a stew related to Malaysian laksa. It also has, surprisingly, a pork chop sandwich on a Portuguese roll called papo seco—all things that Conlon and Lo remember from their time in Macau.
“Some of these things are like re-creating perfection. I mean, it’s a pork chop sandwich and a bun. And it’s the best thing in the world. That’s not the easiest thing to make,” Conlon says. “A 150 trials, and finally we’ve got something close. I mean, people will run out the door screaming for them, but it’s still, for me—I’ve had the real thing. You get a good starting point, and you try to get closer and closer.”
