Five-Spice Duck Confit Congee: The popular dish is a holdover from Kraken’s pop-up days.

Five-Spice Duck Confit Congee: The popular dish is a holdover from Kraken’s pop-up days. Kelly O

Back in early 2013, three chefs at the Ruins, Seattle’s staid and ostentatious private dining club in Lower Queen Anne, had an idea. They wanted a creative outlet. So the three of them—Garrett Doherty, Shane Robinson, and Irbille Donia—began scheming what would become Kraken Congee.

Donia had experience with pop-ups, having held several successful modern Filipino dinners under the name Irbille Edibles. The trio decided to use congee—a simple rice porridge found in many cuisines throughout Asia—as a base to showcase other items like duck confit laced with Chinese five-spice, pork-stuffed squid accented with briny black squid ink, and pork-belly adobo braised Filipino-style in soy sauce and vinegar…

Angela Garbes began her food writing career as a freelancer for The Stranger in 2006, joined the staff in 2014, and is now freelancing once again amid writing books; Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through...