**The last time I paid this neighborhood casual Hong Kong style eatery a visit was way before the Covid invasion! Today, whilst en-route to the McMichael Art Gallery, we drove past this long forgotten eating spot and decided to drop in for a quick lunch. I am so glad we did!
The since renovated dining area features a bright and airy space with a comfortable contemporary setting. The Hong kong/Cantonese-focused menu is a pseudo-clone of the popular Congee Queen version with almost similar fare being offered. However, apart from having a few more extravagant additions like Peking Duck and Roasted squab, it also contained a number of seafood focused set menus. As well, a few unexpected and interesting choices like Mongolian style charbroiled meat skewers and spicy-hot Sichuan dishes were randomly located.
From the vast and diverse menu, we ordered a few of our perennial luncheon favorites:
Cantonese roasted duck and roasted crispy pork belly/ribs combo
Hong kong style spicy and sweet, Penny-hot sauce shredded pork lo-mein
Rice congee with Thousand year eggs and salted pork
Fried Chinese dough - Crullers
Every dish we ordered were either at par with or superior to its neighborhood Congee Queen rival. The Cantonese roasted meat, better seasoned, more flavourful and with crispier skin. The sauce for the lo-mien, more authentic with an elevated flavor profile. Ingredients for the rice congee, generous in quantity and a few steps above in quality and taste.
Guess with this renewed discovery, for future, good quality casual Chinese fare, it looks like our slogan will be “ Hello Mr. Congee … .Goodbye Congee Queen! “
I used to go to a Cantonese (?) restaurant in Falls Church VA that had 9 or 10 different congees and every time I opened the menu my first thought was, “I would like to come to a congee tasting here.”
Can you imagine getting a 2 ounce serving of all 10 congees so you could figure out which ones were best? No spitting them out, though!
In the past, restaurant kitchens actually made different varieties of congees from scratch…cooking the ingredients along with the rice congee. Hence, end results tend to be way more flavourful
Sadly, nowadays, just like some ’ Indian Curry restaurants ’ using a ’ mother sauce ’ and then add whatever meat ingredients into it.
For restaurants offering a lot of congee choices, chefs tend to adopt a more lazy approach by making a ’ Plain Mother Congee Base ’ and then add whatever ingredients into it, as per order. Hence the end result is very often uneven and not well combined
