Day 15

Congee: Interestingly, today was the first day of this experiment where I had absolutely no idea where my post was going to come from. I've been in Vegas since yesterday, and I've had some amazing food so far. I knew tonight's dinner was going to be a little more traditional (Mario Batali's Carnevino), so I had to find something off the beaten path before then. I spotted an Asian restaurant near the casino in the Venetian, so I walked over and checked out the menu. To my surprise, they had congee, which is something I've never had before.

Congee is a rice porridge made from boiling rice until it's thick and soupy. I noticed that they had a version that included pork and "special preserved egg." Recently, a reader suggested that the salted duck egg I ate a couple weeks ago would be good with congee, so that got me interested. And I figured that the congee would be fairly authentic considering the number of Asian tourists in the restaurant. I placed my order, and the server gave me that "dude, are you sure?" look that I'm sort of getting used to by now. They quickly brought my food, and it looked kind of like a bowl of oatmeal or grits, but a lot more milky. It was topped with chopped scallions and fried wonton pieces, and the shredded pork and preserved egg were mixed in. I noticed that the guy next to me was mixing a little soy sauce into his, so I did the same. The verdict? Really good. It almost had a risotto-like consistency, and the soy sauce added a bit of salt to the mix. The preserved duck egg was a bit gnarly to look at, and it's gelatinous texture would scare a lot of people off. It reminded me of a stronger, saltier mushroom, but was really tasty. Overall, a really great find. I could imagine it being awesome on a cold day, but I enjoyed it in the Vegas heat just the same.