5 Chicago restaurants showcasing Mexican and Chinese barbecue

To millions of people around the world, barbecue represents the best of summer. But the grill-to-plate fare varies from country to country, continuously expanding the genre in thrilling ways.

Mexico’s take on BBQ often involves a preparation with chiles (pounded in a molcajete) and citrus juices, vinegar or adobo paste. The meat can be grilled or slow-cooked, presented as an entree or a taco, and accompanied by flavor-bursting poblanos, cilantro, tomatoes, avocados, onions, salsas and homemade tortillas.

In China, the preferred seasonings for shaokao are rice wine, honey, hoisin and soy sauces, five-spice powder, cumin, paprika or chiles. Many of us have seen the roasted ducks or ribs in the storefront windows of Chinese restaurants, but equally popular are small and thin cuts of meat threaded onto skewers. Barbecue pork stuffed into a steamed bao bun is a well-liked snack, and in Zibo, a barbecue hot spot in the Shandong province, the meats are often wrapped up in tortilla-like pancakes.

If you order grilled or roasted meats at traditional Chinese restaurants or grocery stores in the U.S., they’re often served with no frills: just a side of rice. But visit a summer party in China, and guests will nibble on charred veggies, peanut dips and salads with spinach or wood ear mushrooms as they make cumin-spiced Xinjiang-style lamb skewers at the grill.

Chicago has plenty of spots where you can explore Mexican and Chinese barbecue in all its glorious regional variations. Here are five picks to get you started.

Chile Toreado

“My father would make a beautiful barbacoa,” says Jaime Sotelo, owner and executive chef at Chile Toreado, a family-owned restaurant in McKinley Park that uses many recipes from Guerrero, a state in the south of Mexico. Most have been handed down from Sotelo’s parents and grandparents.

One of five brothers who grew up in a small village with no electricity or cars, Sotelo recounts his father’s traditional method of cooking with the underground pit by the light of a petroleum lamp.

“My father would cut ribs in pieces and blend all the combinations of chiles in a metate grinder to make a good marinade paste, while we’d put lots of wood in the ground oven to make it real hot,” Sotelo says.

After three hours of waiting, the oven would reach up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Sotelo’s father would wrap the meat in maguey leaves like a tamale. “For us, barbecue was often an event for five or six families to celebrate things,” Sotelo says.

Keep in mind that barbacoa in Mexico refers to the traditional pit-cooking method; regular above-ground grilling is called parilla. Since underground cooking isn’t legal for U.S. restaurants, Chile Toreado offers a short rib barbacoa ($18.50) that uses the same components, but is made in a regular oven. It comes with guajillo garlic sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, nopalitos salsa and salsa roja.

Other barbecue dishes worth trying are the cochinita pibil ($18), a slow-cooked achiote-marinated pork from the Yucatán region served with black beans, habanero and pickled onions; the grilled carne asada ($23) in adobo marinade with black beans, sweet plantains, knob onions, cream and queso fresco; or the carne en su jugo ($19), which translates to meat in its juices.

“Ninety percent of Mexican restaurants make it like a soup, with beef broth, pinto beans, chopped taco meat, cilantro, chiles and bacon,” Sotelo says of the dish. “We make it more like a stew, using grilled flank steak and the other ingredients I mentioned. It’s very rich in flavor.”

2022 W. 35th St., 773-823-7793, chicagotoreado.com

5 Rabanitos

In Pilsen, just a block from the National Museum of Mexican Art, you’ll find 5 Rabanitos. Alfonso Sotelo is the owner and chef at this restaurant and taqueria, and rabanitos (radishes) is the nickname he and his four brothers (including Jaime Sotelo of the above Chile Toreado) received from people at their hometown market, as they’d come in every week to sell their homegrown radishes.

If you’re jonesing for barbacoa, pick the chile pasilla-marinated beef barbacoa de res ($20) with poblano-garlic mashed potatoes and cheese tostada, or the goat adobo barbacoa ($21) with Mexican rice and avocado, tomatillo and cilantro salsa cruda. Since mole is a labor-intensive sauce to make at home, you might want to try the pot roast ($22) of braised short ribs, mole manchamanteles (with pineapple), poblano rice, ancho chile-roasted plantain and calabazitas verdes (squash).

Non-carnivores should consider the vegetarian ($13) entree with roasted vegetables, soy protein, melted cheese, pickled onions and chipotle cream, or the roasted vegetable huarache ($9.50), a popular Mexican street snack of masa dough with smashed pinto beans.

1758 W. 18th St., 312-285-2710, 5rabanitos.com

Pancho Pistolas

Tampico is a port city in northeastern Mexico near the Gulf of Mexico, and its classic contributions to Mexican gastronomy include tampiqueña-style roasted meats with mole enchiladas and refried beans with cheese.

The style is a popular pick at Pancho Pistolas in Bridgeport, where carne asada ($27) or pollo a la tampiqueña ($20) are two house specialties. Served with a cheese enchilada, rice, beans, grilled scallions, lettuce, tomato and guacamole, the meal pairs wonderfully with a peach margarita ($9) in the airy, spacious and colorful dining area.

700 W. 31st St., 312-225-8808, panchopistolas.com

Qing Xiang Yuan Dumplings

Although this Chinatown restaurant with its sleek and light wood interior mentions dumplings in its name, barbecue is its other specialty. Look no further for grilled skewers such as the lamb kebab ($14). The fish tofu option ($16) should satisfy pescatarians, while more adventurous carnivores can hone in on grilled chicken heart ($10), chicken gizzard ($10) or tendon ($14). If you’re just looking for a good to-go snack to bring on a stroll through the nearby Ping Tom Memorial Park, get a steamed bun kebab ($8) along with a cold bottle of jasmine honey tea or sweet and sour plum juice ($3). Add in some of the skewers, and you’ve got a full picnic ready to go.

2002 S. Wentworth Ave., Ste 103; 312-799-1118; qxydumplings.com

Sun Wah BBQ

Loud conversations bounce off the brick walls in the large, converted carriage garage that makes up the dining room of Sun Wah BBQ. The Uptown restaurant near the Argyle Red Line station and its corridor of Asian restaurants, bakeries and pharmacies, has served Hong Kong-style barbecue since 1987.

On the Friday evening we’re visiting, the place is packed, but approaching closing time. The front kitchen window displays a few roasting chickens and pork ribs and, as we walk in, we pass a large bin of duck feet.

The house barbecue section of Sun Wah’s menu includes small, medium and large portions of pei dar duck ($16-$30), barbecued pork with honey ($11-$17) and meats on rice like the soy sauce chicken ($11). The small barbecue combination ($13) we tried featured roasted chunks of chicken, siu yook pork and thin slices of char siu pork.

Char siu is a Cantonese classic, often made with pork tenderloin or pork shoulder and famous for its vibrant red color, which symbolizes good fortune and happiness. The red hue traditionally comes from red fermented tofu, although some places do bump it up with food coloring. Strict vegetarians might have a hard time trying Chinese barbecue in Chicago, but Sun Wah offers other dishes like mapo tofu and stir-fried eggplant, bok choy or Chinese broccoli.

You might also want to try a shot of the ginseng vodka ($15). It’s infused in-house, and you’ll easily spot see the large glass dispenser at the bar loaded with these intriguing yellowish root plants.

5039 N. Broadway, 773-769-1254, sunwahbbq.com

Nikki O’Neill is a freelance writer.