Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine (Bridlewood Mall)

Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine located at 2900 Warden Avenue in Scarborough

Ah, family time. There’s nothing like it. On a Saturday night, I arrived early to Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine (龍粥記 in Chinese) to get a table for four of us for dinner. I was here early at 5:20 p.m. but the restaurant was packed already! Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine is located on the first level of Bridlewood Mall — I believe this spot used to be a pizza place which is why the geometry of the restaurant is a little odd. It’s a long rectangle shape and they have packed the entire space with tables to maximize capacity.

Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine serves what the name implies — congee! It acts as another Congee Queen or Congee Wong. These restaurants are ubiquitous because there are always people, namely Asian ones, who prefer to share many dishes of rice, noodles, congee, soup, and other small dishes for a meal. The service is usually fast and the food is delicious and cheap.

It was certainly busy here on a Saturday night even before the dinner rush time of 6 p.m.! You could tell that the staff were overworked and a little stressed. When I walked into Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine, there were a lot of people clamoring around the host’s table. I only got a number after I voiced to the hostess several times how many people there were in my party. I found it rather rude that she didn’t answer me until the fourth or fifth time. That didn’t give me a good impression of the restaurant at all.

Luckily, there were many tables that were finishing dinner at this time (the first round of dinner) and we got our table within five minutes of waiting. Since the restaurant had crammed so many tables into the restaurant, several of these tables were actually really close to the doorway. As it was winter, it was not pleasant to sit here because there was always a constant cold front blowing to our table. It was cold!

The menu contained many colourful photos of the dishes. We stuck to something simple that night and ordered four dishes to share.

Halibut with Teriyaki Sauce. $8.99

The Halibut with Teriyaki Sauce caught the attention of my uncle and it was actually a really good dish! For only $8.99, we got five big pieces of fried halibut that were covered in Teriyaki sauce. We really liked how well the halibut was deep fried — it was crunchy and crispy! The fish meat underneath the crunchy skin was also very tender and smooth.

Snow Pea Leaf with King Mushroom. $14.95

In hindsight, the dish of Snow Pea Leaf with King Mushroom was overpriced at $14.95 per dish. While the snow pea leaves were mighty tender and soft and very delicious, we thought that the price didn’t justify this dish. We could have ordered one of their well-known seafood lobster dishes instead! The king mushrooms were also soft and fluffy.

House Fried Rice. $12.50

The House Fried Rice included some BBQ eel with bonito flakes. This dish was a little smaller than we expected (as even Congee Queen has the same dish but theirs is significantly larger in scale) and cost $12.50. However, I really enjoyed this fried rice dish! The chunks of BBQ eel within the fried rice were very well-seasoned and tender, the fried rice was very soft, and the overall taste was very rich and flavourful. This was my favourite dish all night.

House Special Chicken. $8.45

Lastly, we ordered the House Special Chicken. This was nothing special. It was just fried chicken. I thought that the chicken meat was very hard and dry. Its skin was fried to a crisp though and the shrimp chips were very crunchy and tasty.

I liked how at the end of the meal, they served complimentary dessert to everyone! It was a sago soup, a kind of tapioca pudding. This wasn’t too sweet and was a good end to a meal.

Sago dessert

Although we didn’t try too many dishes on this night (and didn’t try lobster), I think I have a good general sense of this restaurant. They’re like a Congee Queen or Congee Wong except that their service is more pushy and the space is not very comfortable (due to constraints and fast turnover). Perhaps I’ll visit again in the future and try their congee, lobster, and noodle dishes!

A glimpse of the restaurant from where we were sitting

Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine

Have you been to Mr. Congee Chinese Cuisine before? What did you think of the experience? (They also have a Richmond Hill location now; they are becoming popular!)