Old Congee Shop

Do you eat congee at these traditional congee shops? I like them more than the more modern ones. Here you can see them actually steaming the 腸粉 and frying the 油炸鬼, instead of assembling the final product from components taken from plastic containers.

My favourites are 艇仔粥, 及第粥, 腰潤粥, 牛肉粥, 皮蛋瘦肉粥, 魚片粥, 油炸鬼, 牛脷酥, 煎堆, 炸兩, 腸粉 … Well, I do seem to like most of them, if not all.

And the atmosphere is more like what I remember from childhood days, not a sanitized version. Here you are not likely to find smartly-dressed people in suits or high-heels. More likely they are mothers with young children, casually-dressed adults (truly-causal, not purposely-made to look casual), and older folks. Somehow there seems to be many more older women than men.

Just this morning a 40-ish woman was feeding a toddler congee, whom I though to be her son. He turns out to be a grandson. Today Hong Kong people tend to get married and have children late, or not at all. But there are evidently also people who have kids at a tender age. What they have in common is that neither raise their own kids. It is left to either grandparents or maids.