[CRA 2010 Signature Dish] Pidan, Pork & Dried Oyster Congee ???????? from Congee Noodle House

Being able to make a return visit to restaurants is a welcome change. It is not often we get the chance to go back to a restaurant given that we usual seek out new places to eat just so we have something to write about. We were at the Congee Noodle House over a year ago for breakfast. So this is a return visit.

A few weeks ago we had some time in the late afternoon after dropping off the boys nearby for their meeting. So rather than shuttling between Richmond and Vancouver, we decided to stick around the area and check out the award winning congee dish on the CRA list.

The Congee Noodle House is located on Broadway, near the intersection with Main. It is quite a strategic location given that it is right in front of a bus stop and that they serve Chinese comfort food — noodles and congee.

For those driving, parking surprisingly had never been a problem for us. There is a car park at the rear of the restaurant and even if it is full, there are meter-free street parkings around the block.

There is another restaurant on Kingsway and Joyce called the Congee Noodle King. Are they both related? Both of the Congee Noodle restaurants have the same distinctive green awning and the Chinese logos are almost similar.

The Congee Noodle House on Broadway has a big dining hall. What you see above is just one section of the hall. Most Chinese restaurants half this size would already been considered very big. While the restaurant is busy when we visited, we were wondering if they ever fill up the entire restaurant. For a dim sum style restaurant, I am sure filling up all the tables would not be a problem. For congee and noodle, I would love to see that.

I consider Congee Noodle House non-Chinese friendly. There are a good mix of customers which is an indication that people are comfortable with the menu.

The menu is pages and pages of comfort food. Nothing fancy — congee, noodles, rice and Chinese BBQ mainly. I think that is the appeal of a place like Congee Noodle House. You can’t go wrong with a menu like that but then of course, you can’t really be great with comfort food.

Chinese Restaurant Award 2010 ? GOLD in the CONGEE Category ? Pidan, Pork & Dried Oyster Congee ????????

So again, there is a confusion over ordering this. You know, the CRA need to make sure that when they award these dishes, they should do something to ensure that the restaurant train every waiters in the restaurant to know the award by heart. It might do good if they can nickname the dishes or something instead of a generic name. Just a thought.

When we asked for the Pidan, Pork and Dried Oyster Congee AND that it is the CRA award winning dish, this was lost on the impatient waitress. Firstly, she does not seem to know what exactly we are asking for and said that ALL their congee are award winning (saying it in Cantonese). Well, I don’t care for ALL the other congee … I specifically want Pidan, Pork and Dried Oyster.

Our dear waitress brought us the Pidan, Pork SANS Dried Oyster Congee. We dig and dig for that illusive dried oyster and could not find it in our bowl. So Suanne asked the waitress about it and mind you for those of you who know Suanne, she is a sweet nice person. So she really really asked nicely.

Instead Suanne was … More after the jump. Click to read the rest of [CRA 2010 Signature Dish]
Pidan, Pork & Dried Oyster Congee ????????
from Congee Noodle House (762 words)

© ben for Chow Times, 2010. |
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