More Plain Congee

No MSG in this plain congee

Plain Congee (with extra spring onions and fried bread bits)
$8 ($4 per bowl)
CityU Canteen

While waiting in the chow line one morning, I overhead one of the canteen staff tell another customer that all the congee save for the plain congee were doused with MSG.  And then this revelation hit me like a tin to the head: small wonder the other congees in the canteen as well as the (best) plain congee in Hong Kong were so delicious: they themselves were drowning in flavor enhancer, and no more stood on their own original merits than a professional athlete relies on his own physique for performance; MSG is a food steroid!

Indeed, to test this hypothesis, I ordered these two bowls of plain congee and without the chemical enhancement of MSG, they truly tasted like insipid, clear soup with rudiments of vegetable and starch in them.  MSG, therefore, it goes without saying, makes everything in the bowl, from the spring onions to the rice grains, taste better!

Plain Congee

Plain Congee (with extra spring onions)

$5

On the corner of Jordan Road and Wai Shing Street, Jordan

After I had left house church one evening, while I was rambling through Jordan on my way to the MTR station, I stopped by a new congee shop and tried their "white," which, for $5, had to be a bargain no matter what my stomach would say.

Unfortunately, the congee was watery and the portion was so meager that, in a flash, I had emptied my bowl. In fact, in the end, I decided that the congee wasn't worth the $5 that I had spent -- beware!

My Sunday morning breakfast: plain congee (with extra spring onions); and peanut butter toast.

Plain Congee (with extra spring onions)

$8

On Des Voex Road Central, near Sheung Wan Exit B

I've been frequenting this place for over a year, and have made it a habit to have breakfast there every Sunday before the 10:00 service. The plain congee is the best in Hong Kong because not only is the portion significantly generous, the congee itself tastes good -- thick; the color of milk; no visible grains -- a product, undoubtedly, of slow cooking over several hours, if not days.

View Hong Kong Price Discrimination in a larger map

Mushroom and Chicken Congee

Mushroom and chicken congee (with peanuts and extra spring onions)
$7.5
City University of Hong Kong canteen

Although the canteen vendor has changed recently, an upstart having usurped Maxim's place in the kitchen, the congee still remains the same.  The physical consistency of the congee, to begin with, is itself rather diluted than thick - there indeed seems to be more water than rice boiled in the mixture; and the value of the product is not in that boiled rice, of course, but in the bits of chicken meat and mushroom, dashed with plenty of peanuts and spring onions, that can all be had for less than one US dollar.  Consequently, though I would gladly prefer to pay the same price for some plain congee at another restaurant that I frequent and whose porridge is as thick as a creamy soup, to the extent that a person enjoys the generous portion of toppings included in the canteen congee, the meal can be considered a success.