Roy Choi Upgrades Chego Chinatown’s Menu to Include Rice Bowl Burritos

In the land of the taco, it seems that these days the burrito may well be king. At least that’s the bet that Roy Choi is making after announcing on social media last night plans to bring a burrito to the menu at Chinatown mainstay restaurant Chego.

Chego is perhaps Choi’s most under-covered restaurant, particularly now as the hours-long lines for Howlin’ Ray’s clog up the conversation about Far East Plaza. The rice bowl shop moved to Chinatown back in 2013 after a run on the Westside, and for years was helping to anchor the plaza before chefs like Alvin Cailan and Andy Ricker showed up. The place is still doing good business and has even expanded into the Whole Foods in Downtown (with another long-running truncated Chego outlet inside the Alibi Room bar in Mar Vista as well), but Choi apparently decided to switch things up only recently with the menu.

Though Choi’s Instagram post, below, doesn’t explicitly lay out the new burrito-ification of the menu (and the website doesn’t list burritos on the menu yet either), it’s likely that these are essentially wraps made of Chego’s signature rice bowls. Certainly a smart move, considering the transportability of burritos — people already pick up and bring entire rice bowl orders to home Dodger games, anyway. Also, it looks as though these burritos will only be available at the Chinatown Chego mothership.

What’s even more interesting is the idea that Los Angeles may be having something of a burrito moment. There’s the popular Cilantro Mexican Grill serving great burritos from a gas station in the Valley, of course, but even chef Josef Centeno is now serving burrito versions of his beloved baco sandwiches at Culver City’s casual Bacoshop. Burritos La Palma expanded into Orange County earlier this year to much fanfare, and everyone still loves the classic breakfast burrito at Lucky Boy in Pasadena. Perhaps, yet again, Roy Choi is hitting a trend right on time.

• How LA’s Most Popular Breakfast Burrito Gets Made Hundreds of Times a Day [ELA]