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The congee I made the other day was pretty good. I was really quite impressed with myself. The reason why I have started to make it was because of a wonderful congee experience we had in New York. Now, it's not rocket science making this stuff, it's not clever or difficult. I grew up on the stuff - with meatballs and crispy vermicelli, chicken, dried scallops, salt pork, thousand-year egg, pork liver, whatever... It's the ultimate comfort food. It smells like home. Eaten with hot pickled turnips and pickled tofu, it is the food of the gods. I'm not kidding - rice boiled to within an inch of its life is one of the best things in the world.

So for breakfast we headed out to Chinatown and Big Wong in particular, looking for congee. The restaurant is simple and cheap-looking, just like places in Hong Kong, with water served in plastic tumblers and a bottle of soy sauce on the side - you'd never know from looking at it that it would be worth going inside but with this place it's all about the food. We had one bowl with salt pork and thousand year egg and another with pork meatballs. It was creamy and well seasoned but didn't have the horrid taste of MSG or anything odd. It was like home, where I like my congee with white pepper and soy sauce. It was like balm to a stomach that had been overfed on weird shit the day before.


After that we went in search of bubble tea, a very popular drink in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. In HK I like what they call 'yin yang' - a mix of tea and coffee, and unsweetened if possible. We didn't get that - I had a sweet milk tea that tasted a bit odd, but it was fun nevertheless to sit in a little candy-coloured shop and suck up the chewy tapioca balls through fat straws.