Speed Dating Congee at HM Quan

Ok ... let me take a break from blogging about recent travels and do right by some of my drafts posts.

We went to this newly minted faux fastfood footscray foodstore (how's that for alliteration) on the corner of Hopkins and oblivion some time ago. We found HM Quan a treat!

First up, let me just state that I know where they're going with their slipped disc inducing kindergarten seating. They have the same ye olde set up at Satay by the Bay in Singapore. Difference is that Satay by the Bay offers proper seating at grown up tables for the less bendy amongst us, HM Quan does not.

That kind of limits the dynamic of your audience - so maybe only the young and limber are encouraged here. But never mind, the food is cheap and rather cheerful.

And this is how the menu works. You have your basic bowl of congee (or the alternative of rice if you must) at $2.99 a pop. You can then choose an accompaniment or more from a list of about 14 or so dishes, all similarly priced at $2.99 each.

You can prefer to be frugal and order just one or two or you can simply go hell for leather. We economized somewhere in the middle with 3 choices each.

If I remember correctly, I had the Caramelised Pork, Salted Pickled Melon (because you need to have preserved vegetable of some sort) and the Fish Cotton (which is basically floss).

M had the Caramelised Fish, the Fish Cotton and Salted Duck Egg.

Although I would have preferred my dishes slightly warmer in temperature, on the whole the experience was delightful, and not to mention delicious!

There are a number of sauces available to help proceedings along. My pick is the salt shrimp - salty, prawny crunch! Yum.

And if your still hungry after all that, you can share a plate of hot and trending Banh Trang. Although I think I prefer the one at Co Thu Quan.

It is teetering on the slightly willful side of Novelty snacks, but its worth checking out at least once, especially since it proffers decent value for money.

But like participants at a speed dating night, you just want to keep changing things up as quickly as possible until you're well and truly sated ... so exercise some restraint, or you could just kiss the diet goodbye and lose all pretensions to piety and pig the hell out!!!

Now if only they would consider proper seating ...