Toronto: Chinese: Congee Wong

I work pretty far away from where I live, so I have no idea where the good restaurants are. This makes it tough to get take-out on the way home because, thanks to the incredibly human-unfriendly layout of North Toronto, I'd have to make all these detours to get take-out on my way home if I wanted to get take-out from places near me.

So one day, I asked one of my coworkers who lived nearby where the good places were. And she said, "You should go to Congee Wong. It isn't fancy, but it's cheap and really good."

She told me where it was, but I never got around to going. Then one night I had to meet a friend at Leslie and Finch (or so I thought...It turns out the restaurant, Jerusalem, moved) and saw Congee Wong. This was a different location than where my coworker told me it was, but it turns out there are three locations, all in the North End of the GTA: Leslie&Finch; Centre and Bathurst (in Promenade Mall, near the T&T) and on Highway 7 & Leslie (in a strip mall). (BTW, according to the website and Google maps, there's also one in the Peachtree Centre on Kennedy Road in Markham).

So far, I've been to two locations: Leslie&Finch and Promenade Mall. They were both packed! Like crazy, crazy, take-a-number-and-wait-20-minutes packed! They were both very clean, very bright and very new. The bathrooms were a bit icky, but whaddya want? There has to be a trade-off somewhere.

Congee Wong has this great, long menu, full of your standard, North American Chinese fare (General Tao Chicken, vegetable fried rice, etc) and your authentic food (or so I think because, really, I haven't seen Bamboo Fungus & Mushroom Lo Mein or Blood Jello Congee on the menu at any food court Chinese place).

I haven't really been adventuresome, really, because I didn't want to order something I didn't recognize and end up eating blood pudding (which I almost did at another Chinese place). But what I did have (shrimp dumplings, vegetable fried rice, chicken in black bean sauce, beef noodle and something else I can't remember) was really good! It was fresh and hot, with lots of flavours and textures. It tasted homemade and not like President's Choice frozen food (unlike some places that won't be mentioned right now).

Anyways, I'm really digging it and it merits several return visits.