My black ass learned a minute ago to NEVER prejudge a restaurant just because it’s located in a strip mall (see CG San Soo Gap San post). Pan-Asia’s freshest chop house in Chi-City, Urban Belly (UB), nestles into the company of a restaurant pool which is content with calling retail stores such as White Cleaners and Barry Coin Laundry “mall neighbors.” There is something to be said about a restaurant that has the audacity to pick a location like this. I mean, heads ain’t driving to Avondale to get cultured. Seriously, A-Dale don’t fuck.

Dine & throw in a couple loads!

Needless to say, Le Lan’s Bill Kim has officially killed it once again; effectively fusing dumpling, noodle and fried rice dishes along with a communal dining experience reminiscent of the far east street food scene. Kim keeps the dining room packed like a Christmas Bazaar by furnishing the room with four eight-top tables. Total disregard of reservations aids the theme. If you have to wait for a table, I suggest avoiding the clusterfuck that UB calls a foyer. Go back to your car and get your drank and smoke on. Shirk the nervousness playboys…servers will come to your ride when the table space is a go.

UB is all bidness when it comes down to their service model. After you’re sussed out on seats, you’ll be immediately directed to the ordering counter which is directly in front of the service window. You place, pay, and sit your ass back down. Ten minutes later, dishes start coming at you with no regard like Somali Pirates.

After some civilized conversation and Chilean Pinot Noir, CGs quickly fell back into gluttonous role-play which included the ordering and ingestion of copious amounts of food, and later, “the itus.”

Dumplings make the debut:

Of course, we started off with the Pork and Cilantro dumplangs. CG krew couldn’t figure out if they preferred the golden, perfectly fried exterior, or the soft, succulent pork center. No doubt, this dish was on some tastebud emancipation shit.

Next up, the Chicken and Shitake Mushroom dumplangs were chopsticked into our gullets. As the photo shows, the searing technique was correct. This is what George Foreman originally planned for his busted ass grill. Flavors were locked in like camel toes behind chastity belts.

And then it was time for the Duck and Pho Spices dumplangs deep fried hard-n-shit. If you’ve been reading CG posts for a minute, you know that CG Krew are sluts for anything Peking. And, oh no, tastebuds would not be disappointed on this night.

Hells nah, we wernt done with dem ‘langs yet.

We also got the Lamb and Brandy dumplangs with Edamame. Things headed 3rd World tribal when the lamb came out wrapped in doughskins and presented with a dowry of sauteed red chilies and sweet soy. We got all presidential on the Edamame…Baracking pods like they were Pixie Sticks.

Finally, we had the Asian Squash and Bacon dumplangs. This dish was a perfect melding of fall and summer flavors, showcasing just the right amount of acid against the sweet squash.

Round two was fried rice:

CG Fam went with the Phat Rice (featuring fried Dirkies on top of the short rib) and the Pork Belly and Pineapple Fried Rice. As for the latter, CG’s RinRin said, “this shit tastes just like Hong Kong.” She’s Chinese; I wouldn’t even create inner bubble thoughts to second guess her Hakka Proclamations. Pineapple and pork belly…it all seems so simple. My 6th grade teacher spoke the truth when she said, “Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.).”

(BTW, combine both of these dishes for full-flavor orgasm).

Dang Dang…time for the TKO:

Choices for the final section of our dining experience brought on Asian Egg Noodles and Urban Belly Ramen. Asian Egg Noodles were the fiyah. The spicy broth made the tofu squares taste like Hooter’s Hotwangs. After a couple of bites, I began to search the dining room for D-Cups in white tank-tops.

Roy is all about trying the house dish, so we went for the restaurant’s namesake. Shockingly, Pork Belly and fungus link up like Jewish kids on J-Date. The Pork Belly was juicy and flavorful, profusely soaking up the dark broth. Properness.

Kimchi. Well worth subsequent halitosis.

So here’s the thing about Urban Belly: every dish is pretty much fucking delicious and AFFORDABLE. This same meal at Japonais cost Gluttons Krew like 5 Bills. Inquisitive parties keep hollerin out: ‘but, is it worth the hype?’ And somehow these would-be patrons maintain a steady weariness of the restaurant chatter surrounding Urban Belly. Well, would-bes and would-haves, I’m sending out a QDBAWLS 92.5 FM request to fall the fuck back.

UB is steady pushing heads through the do’ and STILL has a line that wraps around the Dollar Plus. Why? Because motherfuckas are feeling it.

Dinner, Lunch, Things We've Eaten chicago dumplings, great restaurants in strip malls, urban belly, urban belly chicago

The first time Gluttons ate Peruvian food, we stumbled into it after hoofing it around the empty streets of some Madrid neighborhood one Sunday morning a few years ago.  We were up grandma early cuz of the time change and hungry as goldfish cuz on US of A time it was lunchbox time. After like an hour of walking–no exaggeration–we found our joint, the only place open on the entire block, a shiny gold tooth in a jacked up grill. Three Peruvian women sat us in a stuccoed back room with no windows and no way out but the way we came in. Had a live chicken bolted into the room, or Ollie North showed up in a thawb to deal arms, none of us’d've blinked. That was one scary-ass, claustrophobic room.

We sat there for a second, hungry and taking it all in, until the women brought us bowls of hot, broth-y soup. Sorta like chicken noodle soup but with garbonzo-like beans and fish. Shit was delicious, but I’d mostly forgotten about the flavor cuz the soup’s become this weird-ass food item that we ate that one time in that fucked up room in Madrid.

Flash forward to last week to Rosa de Lima, where Gluttons have gathered to celebrate my birfday (Holla!) , and lo and behold, what does the waiter plop in front of us but the same motherfuckin’ soup! That’s some serious symmetry. Food gods is real, son.

And the soup was again tasty, although not stunning. Not like were popping flavor cherries or anything. But if I was laid up on the couch with the flu in me, I’d eat this shit with a Nyquil back all day long.

Soup's on, gluttons!

Before we get too deep into the food, a word about the decor. Rosa is wide-open–one giant room that was almost totally empty the night we were there.  The drop ceiling was punctuated with sharp fluorescent lights that were on full hum.  The floor is packed full of big round tables covered with white table cloths. There was no music, no chatter, no waitstaff other than our waitress, no kitchen din. The only sound in the place came from a TV playing the World Series in Spanish. Someone needs do something about this. I’ve seen more ambiance in retirement home dining halls.

Rosa de Lima's interior? More like Rosa de Lame-a.

Alright. So, the food. In addition to the complimentary soup, we were also given garlic bread, which I promptly spread with aji sauce. What, you may ask, is aji? Let’s ask the Family Circus:

Nah, just playin’. Aji’s a green, creamy hot sauce made with aji peppers and cilantro, among other things, and it’s good as hell. I’ve never had a hot sauce that tasted quite like it before. I spooned it on everything that crossed my plate.

A spoon full of medicine.

After the free soup and bread, we ordered three appetizers. Two were fine, nothing exceptional. In fact I barely remember them. One was halved avocados covered in a some sort of mayonnaise-based shrimp salad. The other was a plate of boiled (I think) potatoes covered in a yellow cheese sauce.  Solid B’s both of them. The tamale, though, was crazy delicious. It was wide–think three traditional Mexican tamales smashed together like Fig Newtons–and served out of its husk. Eating it was like eating cake or chocolate–super rich and decadent–but also salty and savory like jerky. Way moister than any other tamale I’ve ever had. It didn’t need the aji but I doused it in it anyway.

Entrees followed the same pattern–most were B’s but one was fucking phenomenal. The B’s included a ceviche dish, a pile of mixed seafood, a cold chicken dish, and a steak. All fine, but all nothing compared to the superstar, the featured item, the headliner. That, my hungry friends, was the roasted chicken. Yessir, at Rosa de Lima, the biddy stands alone.

Typically, I don’t get down with the bird when I eat out unless it’s deep-fried. Swine, bovine, duck, goats, quails–all of the above usually sound more appealing than the base poultry options on menus. But this bird, damn. I don’t know what kind of chickens they raise in Peru, but Holy God are they delicious. Ours were spiced perfectly, with a rub that seemed to include pepper, cumin, maybe paprika. The outside was done right, slightly crispy with just the right amount of charred skin.  And the insides: beautiful. Our chickens ran juices like Snapple when we cut into them.

I'm gonna get my girlfriend to carry this tamale as a clutch at the next formal event we attend.

The Colonel's worst nightmare.

The pickled onions deserve mention also. They looked like they were gonna taste like straight-on sliced red onions but instead were uber-fresh, lime-marinated muted versions of the raw bulb. But, really, what it comes down to at Rosa de Lima is the bird. Everything else (except that dank-ass tamale) pales.  We had two orders at our table of six, and there was no question which entree was the real business. If ya’ll ever find yourselves at Rosa, there’s no question what you need to do. Get yourself half a chicken, spiced and roasted Peruvian style. It’s the kind of chicken that inspires stand-offs and duels. This ain’t no Tombstone pizza. You don’t let the last piece sit.

Dinner, Lunch, Things We've Eaten chicago peruvian food, Peruvian food, peruvian restaurant chicago, Rosa de Lima