Chimi Loco lights up the night. — Photos by Scarlett Lindeman
It’s one of those nights. The rain is spitting, the sky is seemingly darker through whiskey-heavy eyes, and there are strangers on every corner. You plod home, fearing morning, with a creeping hunger that cries out for grease-saturated bread. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, a beacon of fried flesh and plantains, and it’s drawing you in like a moth to a street lamp.
You have hit Chimi Loco. A phantom of a restaurant that only comes out at night, it’s just a stationary truck, surrounded by scrap metal.
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A chimichurri — chimi for short — is not the parsley-garlic paste on your steaks in Argentina, it’s the Dominican version of a hamburger. A warm bun slathered in mayo, ketchup, and a generic BBQ sauce, with a beef patty thinner than Shake Shack, a tomato slice, and lightly pickled shredded cabbage that cuts through the mess. It’ll put you to bed exuding garlic fumes.
Chimi Loco has been up and running for the past sixteen years, feeding the after hours crowd until 5am. Snouts and ears, rice and peas crowd the glass-lined case, while a long train of half-built chimis line the counter waiting for their insides — beef, pork, or chicken. There are also a variety of frituras, fried bits, like green plantains and empanadas, but it is the chimi that tastes of the streets of Santo Domingo.
Waiting for their food, people huddle with hands in their pockets and shoulders hunched, trying to shrug off the cold. Cars with tinted windows pull up and order piles of chimis. Cooks scramble to assemble sandwich after sandwich. A guy in a white sweater exits Tropical, the throbbing nightclub across the street, holding a plastic cup with a neon beverage, and calls out his order, “Tres chimis, dos pollo, un puerco.” I glance over at a tough looking lady in a Yankee cap holding the plate version of the sandwich, a pile of meat, and tostones.
“Is that good?” I ask.
“Bangin’,” she says. “Bangin’.”
Chimi Loco
Irving Avenue between Myrtle and Linden
Dusk til dawn
Food: $3-6
Dominican Republic Realtor October 24th, 2009 at 7:15 am
I live on the north coast of the Dominican Republic in Sosua, and although I’m not a native of the DR, I agree with the locals that the chimi is the best 2am food in existance!