NakedSushi

The BF and I have been going to Yi Mei whenever we got a craving for northern Chinese breakfast on the weekends. (I’ve always thought of it as northern Chinese breakfast, but some people also call it Taiwanese breakfast because apparently they have it in Taiwan as well.) We read on Hungry Couple that there was another restaurant in the neighborhood that also had pretty good breakfast food, so we decided to try it out this weekend to see if it compares to Yi Mei.

Fahn tuan is a roll of sticky rice (kind of like an uncut sushi roll) covering a Chinese crueller and some type of filling. Since we usually order the vegetarian version at Yi Mei, we did the same at Yung Ho. The veggie version at Yi Mei has some sort of savory crunchy filling (ground peanuts?) that’s salty enough to go well with the blandness of the sticky rice. The one at Yung Ho was also savory, but the dried and pickled radish was a little too salty and I didn’t appreciate the addition of cilantro. It was also a bit weird that the crueller was wrapped in a layer of nori. Too much like a wannabe sushi roll for my tastes.

Next up was the savory doufu hua which is like porridge made from tofu. It’s really, really soft tofu in some type of liquid. The one from Yi Mei is satisfying in a simple, comforting way. The way we usually get it is with some preserved cabbage, a little bit of soy sauce, and chopped green onions. Adding a little hot chili oil and dipping the fahn tuan in it is my favorite way to eat this. The version at Yung Ho was not what I expected; there was just too much in the dish. The soup was a thick starchy brown and there were chopped mushrooms and carrots in it as well as the tofu. This seemed more like a dinner soup with tofu than a simple breakfast doufu hua.

Even though fahn tuan and doufu hua is usually more than enough for me, I always have to order a steamed bun when I’m at a new place. The veggie steamed bun at Yung Ho was definitely better than the one at Yi Mei even though it’s hard to compare because they both have different fillings. Yung Ho’s was filled with some type of green (bok choy leaves maybe?) and a little bit of chopped shiitake mushrooms. Yi Mei’s has more cabbage, mushroom, and clear soy noodles and and is a bit too heavy on black pepper.

Finally, we had some green onion pancakes at Yung Ho. These were the best I’ve had in a while. They were fried in enough oil so that they were hot and crispy when we got them and they tasted great dipped in the rest of the doufu hua.

Even though the steamed buns and green onion pancakes at Yung Ho were a lot better than the ones I’ve had at Yi Mei, I still prefer Yi Mei. It’s probably because when I’m craving Chinese breakfast, I’m craving a freshly made fahn tuan and a hot bowl of doufu hua, both of which Yi Mei excels at.