Congee Noodle House

A return to Congee Noodle House for me means the return to dragon boating. It's close to False Creek, open late, and serves Chinese comfort food at reasonable prices. A visit to Congee is always a likely destination for our team after a long night of paddling in the cold.

This is actually our second visit in as many weeks. Unfortunately, I was so hungry during the first visit that all the food was gone before I remembered to snap any pics.

Today, we started with the classic Preserved Egg and Shredded Pork Congee. With "congee" as part of their name, Congee Noodle House is proud of their congee and they sure know how to make it. It's always creamy, smooth and fluffy and doesn't need to be salted yourself. It's already mildly salted and topped with peanuts and scallions. There were good chunks of preserved/century eggs and shredded pork throughout.

A standard side dish with congee is the Chinese donut. This is a picece of fried dough and comes in a savory or sweet variety. The savory version is usually served as long strips, and the sweet version is normally shaped in an oval. These are also usually cut into chunks for dipping into the congee. Congee Noodle House makes great versions of both, and today, we got the savory Steamed Rice Roll with Chinese Donut. The rice rolls were embedded with dried shrimp and onions, and also comes drizzled in a mild soy sauce with hoisin dipping sauce on the side. This was very tasty as usual, and gobbled up quickly.


We continued the meal with the Honeymoon Fried Rice. This is a fried rice topped with a sweet and sour tomato onion and chicken sauce on one side, and a creamy shrimp and peas sauce on the other. This is also sometimes called Yin Yang Fried Rice, as the two sauces are layered in the same of the yin yang symbol. It's called honeymoon fried rice as well because it's a popular dish served during wedding reception dinners.

To me, the sweet and sour sauce makes or breaks this dish. I like the sauce on the sweeter side, and this version is quite mild. Congee's version is decent, but not great. I like the version served at Koon Lock the best. You can get a picture of their version at Chowtimes. You'll notice that Koon Lock didn't bother to pour their sauces in the shape of a yin yang despite their version actually being called yin yang fried rice on their menu.

To get our recommended fiber for the meal, we got a plate of Kai Lan and Beef. This wasn't on their menu, but is a common dish at Chinese restaurants and was made for us upon request. It's basically just strips of lean beef stir-fried in soy sauce with Kai Lan (Chinese Broccoli) and scallions. The beef was good, lean, tender not overcooked. The Kai Lan was good and crisp but I like mine tender and this was not the most tender that I've ever had. All in all, this was an enjoyable dish.


At this point, we had received everything we ordered, but was still hungry, so we got an order of Sliced Chicken with Green Pepper in Black Bean Sauce Chow Mein. Despite its name, it also had chunks of red peppers and onions. The chow mein was perfectly crispy, and part of what I love about chow mein is mxing the crunchy dry fried noodles with the sauce-soaked tender ones. The thick and savory black bean sauce worked very well for this effect and I enjoyed this dish very  much.

This meal of 4 costs us $12.50 each including tax and tip. Quite reasonable for good old fashioned Chinese comfort food. We left stuffed and satisfied, and I have no doubt I'll be eating at Congee again many times this year until it's too cold (for sane people) to paddle again. (Some might argue it's too cold to paddle now, but I'm steering and not getting wet :-P)

Pros:
-reasonable prices
-decent portions
-good value on set menu if you have a large party.
-huge restaurant with lots of large tables for large parties. 

Cons:
-not the prettiest decor, if that matters to you. 
-that damned parking lot: Almost always full, extremely difficult to maneuver, and accident prone.
-metered parking in adjacent streets, which are also almost always full, and in high traffic areas.

Notes:
-open late, with late night menu (smaller versions of regular menu items with smaller prices).
-free street parking in front of store if you are lucky to find a spot. Otherwise, prepare to pay meter or park a few blocks away.
-open late, but sometimes they run out of stuff like dessert :*(


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