I’m embarrassed to admit it but I’d never eaten congee until this morning when I ventured to a very cool Hong Kong style restaurant in Toronto’s Chinatown for a first taste. I’ll be talking more about this great resto for my CBC Radio column this coming Wednesday, April 7th, but in the meantime, I’ll report that I am a new fan to congee. What is it about congee that makes it a dish that we North Americans never adopted along with chicken and black bean sauce and Shanghai noodles?
For a late breakfast, we ordered plain congee but it had a nice chickeny flavour which we ate with what they translate to be “salt donuts.” I felt geographically displaced over breakfast in my own city. Flavours I’d never tasted, customs I’d never witnessed. I love it when this happens. When the city turns out to be exactly the kind of place I want to live in.