Ooey Gooey Fries + The Beefy T
August 30, 2014
Location: Chego! (Chinatown)
Holy French fries, Batman! Not only was the meal damn good but the food coma that followed was SIGNIFICANT. I cannot remember the last time I had such an overwhelmingly satisfying, belly-expanding sup. I visited this restaurant’s now-former West LA home once before and was so impressed that when I heard of their new Chinatown digs, I had to check them out again. Good food, good friends, good times.
Ooey Gooey Fries: Three magic words (technically four if you do not count hyphenation): beer-battered cheese fries. Fries bathed in a beer batter, fried to crunchy perfection and covered in three kinds of cheese (shredded Monterey Jack + cheddar cheeses and tangy cotija fragments). Good lord have mercy. I did mostly avoid the cilantro, chilies + pickled garlic for fear my stomach would implode. Much like the chili on the Loaded Potato Skillet from last week, the rich sambal (an Indonesian chili sauce), based in sour cream, could have been easily left off without issue but it augmented the fries’ gluttonous status beyond fat ass status.
The Beefy T: This rice bowl on steroids was a perfect complement to the heavy fries. The hot chili rice with diced veggies was surprisingly light and along with the thin fried shallots and 쌈장- (ssamjang, thick Korean spicy paste) like shoyu (soy sauce) paste could easily be my daily entrée for weeks without me blinking, but the diced prime rib, tender + juicy even in chunk form, elevated this dish to an elegant, brilliant level.