Ox-tongue hotpot coming to Allston

The Boston Licensing Board decides tomorrow whether to let a Chicago hotpot restaurant open up on Cambridge Street in Allston using the beer and wine license it hopes to buy from a defunct pizza place in East Boston.

At a hearing today, Qiao Lin Hotpot's attorney, Andrew Upton, said the Chongqing-style restaurant would be different from existing hotpot places in the area both because it would be larger and because, in addition to the standard hotpot proteins of lamb, beef and pork, it will offer "exciting and exotic" options, including ox tongue, chicken-liver kabobs and tripe.

The new place will go into the ground floor of a condo building nearing completion at 392-396 Cambridge St., just off Harvard Avenue. Xun Yang, the restaurant's proposed manager, will not just be moving from Chicago to run the place, he will live in one of the condos once the building is ready for occupancy.

Upton said he hopes the restaurant can open in January or February, with the beer and wine license from Italian Express Pizzeria on Sumner Street.