Fat Rice Has Major Flavors - Chicago

Abraham Conlon and Adrienne Lo proved their mastery of salty, spicy and bold tastes through years of X-Marx supper-club dinners and bags of Mama's Nuts.

Happily, the duo's penchant for major flavor now has a permanent home: Fat Rice, a new Logan Square restaurant inspired by the Chinese-Portuguese cooking of Macau.

The open kitchen produces a throng of piquant dishes: chewy house-made linguiça sausage ($8); sour and spicy pickled cauliflower, carrot and radish ($4); and Sichuan-inspired shaking chile whitefish with preserved lemons ($14) are three that whip the palate into rapt attention.

Supplement with pot stickers ($10), expertly crisped and served with a dipping sauce of sweet black vinegar, chiles and chives. The restaurant's namesake Fat Rice casserole (pictured; $34) is a must. The clay pot is piled high with Chinese sausage, roasted pork, braised chicken, clams and prawns atop rice cooked with pepper-garlic-onion sofrito and plump, sherry-vinegar-soaked raisins. Be sure to capture bites of the kalamansi mojo drizzle, and scrape the crisped, crunchy rice from the bowl's walls.

The barrage of gutsy flavors continues through dessert. There's superbly moist pumpkin cake with pineapple and sherry vinegar-jaggery caramel ($8), and a trippy version of a Rice Krispies treat ($5), here with pork floss and seaweed.

Fat Rice, 2957 W. Diversey Ave.; 773-661-9170 or eatfatrice.com