February 1, 2006
Congee Fever
Written by DCist Contributor April Fulton.
An Asian breakfast of congee, or as the Chinese say, jook, makes a perfect lunch on a blustery day. At Full Kee in Chinatown, you can get a savory, steaming bowl of this rice porridge with pork strips, scallions and 1,000 year old eggs for the low, low, price of $5.95. We know what you're thinking, who wants to eat old eggs? You do. Trust us.
Notwithstanding their unappetizing name, 1,000 year-old eggs are actually just duck eggs that have been buried in a mixture of tea, lime, salt and ashes for 100 days. The curing process renders the whites a blackish amber you can almost see through, and a blackish green substance replaces the yolk. They taste like a firm avocado, sort of. The result is a mess of interesting textures and colors that can be mild like in the soup or strong in a salad.
DCist recently sat at one of those communal tables downstairs with an old Chinese man, a young Library of Congress contractor, and a pair of middle-aged co-workers splitting something sweet and sour with gloppy orange goo on it. While they went on about their business, we enjoyed our soup immensely. That's the great thing about Full Kee: there's something for everyone, whether you like fake American Chinese food or the more exotic tripe and chicken feet thing. And it's cheap.
Full Kee
509 H St. NW
(202) 371-2233
Cash only
Picture used under a Creative Commons license from flickr user fiordizucca
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That sounds interesting. I had the porridge once in Pasadena, but I don't recall it having the eggs or pork or anything. Perhaps I'll give this version a shot.
Some readers might be interested that there is also a Falls Church location, which according to Washingtonian (http://www.washingtonian.com/dining/Profiles/fullkeeva.html) is similar to the Chinatown location in food, and perhaps better in ambience.
I've been to neither, but after reading this review and Washingtonian's, I'll try to make it to one or the other.
I have been to both locations although I thought the one in Chinatown was closed...I stand corrected. The Falls Church locations (7corners, across from bestbuy and next to K&G) has a much nice ambiance and quite a bit more seating and the Chinatown location has more of a "traditional" feel to it. Great soup, the shrimp wantons are the best in town.
"Picture used under a Creative Commons license"
just "a" creative commons license? which one? it matters, you know. for example, if it was a non-commercial creative commons license, use of it on this site might violate the license. if it was a share-alike license, you're violating the license unless you license this post under the same terms.
grda: You're mistaken about share-alike. If you refer to this page, you'll see that it only applies to "derivative works", and that simple display of the image is specifically excluded from qualifying as such a work. If we were to crop the picture, that cropped version would have to be offered under a sharealike license -- but not the post itself.
The noncommercial distinction is somewhat more vague. DCist writers are individually liable for the images they use; as writers are not compensated, this makes their use noncommercial, despite the site displaying ads. Compare it to a user posting a CC noncommercial work on a phpBB forum that runs ads.
I'll admit that this latter point rests in more of a gray area. We do our best to contact CC noncommercial license holders in order to obtain permission prior to running their work, and, when this is not possible, promptly comply with any requests we receive to take such works down. And of course we always provide credit via a link, whether the license requires attribution or not.
The point of CC is to make one's work more accessible. We hope that a volunteer, community-oriented effort like DCist is the type of user that copyright holders have in mind when they choose to license their work via CC. If not, they just need to say the word.
DCist Tom: thanks for clearing that up. i certainly agree with you that DCist is the sort of effort that CC licensers hope to support.
that said, i still think it's important to state which CC license the work is being used under. for instance, if it is share-alike, then i would know that i could take the image from this page and reuse it in my own CC work. but if it's also non-commercial, i'd know that i can't use it in my commercial CC work.
the full kee pork/noodle soup with vegetagles should not be missed
http://dcbubble.blogspot.com/2006/01/comfort-cuisine-save-architecural.html