FEATURED IN BON APPETIT MAGAZINE APRIL 2020

Boston Globe - October 2019

BOSTON – By 12:20 on a recent Monday, all but six seats at Mei Mei are filled and a line is forming at the counter for the first lunch pop up of Congee & Me, the creation of 29-year-old Brookline native Arielle Chernin. Radiating warmth that can’t be taught in hospitality school — though she attended one of the best — Chernin greets everyone who enters as if they are longtime friends.

Brookline TAb - SeptembeR 2019

The Brookline native has menu options for veterans and newbies alike at her pop-up restaurant, Congee & Me. Among the choices are “the O.G.,” featuring shredded chicken, maitake mushroom and tea egg, or “bacon, egg & cheese,” which comes with pork belly, gouda cheese, egg and tomato oil.

'“The slogan I’ve adopted is, ‘Chinese porridge meets classic American breakfast,’” Chernin said, adding, “I just wanted to really honor the dish in a way that was approachable for non-Asians, for traditional Asians, for kind of everybody.”

Boston.com - august 2019

“My mom is Chinese and my dad is Caucasian,” Chernin explained. “My brother, sister, and I really grew up meshing cultures within our household. My mom would cook this traditional Chinese food and we would put our own twists to it.

That meant pairing her mom’s congee — which is made by boiling rice down with a ton of water (it usually requires a 12-to-1, water-to-rice ratio) until it resembles loose oatmeal — with anything that they could find in the fridge.

“We would open the refrigerator and literally take everything out and make a topping bar on our kitchen table, and everyone could put in whatever they wanted,” Chernin said. “We would throw in things that are super non-traditional: peanut butter, brie cheese, strange pickles, and crunchy things. We would make fun of each other and then try them and say, oh, this is actually good.”