Yi Mei Deli Co
Categories: Chinese, Breakfast & Brunch, Taiwanese [Edit]
18414 Colima Rd OfcRowland Hghts, CA 91748 (626) 854-9246
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: No
- Parking: Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: No
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: No
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Breakfast
- Alcohol: None
35 Reviews for Yi Mei Deli Co
Not as good or as large as Four Seas but this place was the first Chinese breakfast place in the area.
This place hits the spot early morning, when you want some Chinese breakfast. The wait is pretty quick, you get in line and order your food. About 2 minutes later, before you can even find a seat, the lady comes out with the food yelling your number. The food is piping hot and freshly made to order.
Get the:
Delicious fan tuan (sticky rice wrapped around the doughy stick thing with some pickled vegetable and pork sung)
Yummy salty soy bean milk, you'll try to gulp the whole massive bowl in as fast as you can get it down your throat without burning your inside.
Scrumptious sao bing ja rou, sesame bread wrapped around beef, pickled veggies and some sauce
We had trouble finding seats, and had to sit outside in the blazing hot sun. The service is prompt.
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Taiwanese breakfast so good, it made me almost call the order taker Gran-maw-maw. Probably perfect hangover food too, but I wouldn't know .. =P
We had the breakfast of Chinese champions - Yo Tiaw + Sweet Do Jiang. They get 5 stars just for the fact that both were fresh at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. BF was all over the Gua Bao like white on rice - said the filling was substantial and the amount of peanut sauce satisfactory.
I loved that they had Salty Do Hua (Tofu) here - although a bit too bland for my liking, but nothing a ton of the table condiments (soy sauce, hot oil, garlic paste) couldn't fix.
The skin of the Shiao Long Bao was ultra thin; filling was good. But not enough soup inside the dumpling.
Will try the Mee Jiang next time, which seems to be all the rage. And will save 10% of appetite for King of Stinky Tofu next door .. mmmm!
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Very chinese style breakfast.... it could be 5 stars if they can clean the table more.
Wah-say! Too much good stuff.
At Yi Mei, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Except I'm a grown man now, and instead of getting giddy, I get a funny feeling in my pants (oops TMI...). Anyway, there's a gangload of Taiwanese goods at Yi Mei. I can literally go for one of everything! Of course the fresh soy milk is solid, but my most favorite thing to get is the bah-zhang aka zongzi aka Taiwanese tamale. Zongzi are filled with glutinous rice, stewed pork meat, shittake mushrooms and awesomeness, all wrapped up in bamboo leaves, and tied in a tetrahedral shape. Last Sunday was Duan Wu Jie, which is celebrated by the exchange and consumption of zongzi. It was a good day.
I also love bowl rice cake, which is a glutinous rice cake topped with minced meat, cilantro, and sauce. Omg. I need to get myself back to Yi Mei soon... if only it wasn't so far in Rowland Friggin Heights.
Tips: Fried breakfast food for dinner might sound good, but it might not be fresh.
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All the goodies here made me feel like I was back in Taiwan again!
They have excellent drinks that are made in house (esp their milk tea that is world better and has much more tea flavor than the powder crap you get at Quickly or others). There's about 8 selections total. They also have soy milk for the Taiwanese breakfast (fried long doughnut in bun) served here in the mornings.
There are many desserts and meals here including Taiwanese "tamales" (the triangle shaped gluttonous rice), bowl rice cake with meat, oil rice. etc here...all fairly delicious (okay, you can't compare to the really good roadside stands of Taiwan).
Don't let the C rating scare you, it just means good quality! ;)
Leave it to an evening with a couple of avid good eats yelpers to continue into the night with food.
This Yi Mei is way bigger than the Monterey Park location. Lots of traditional Taiwanese foods (see other Yi Mei review for descriptions http://www.yelp.com/us...).
Lots of delicious baked goods. I liked the shiao bing wrapped beef here better and learned that Yi-Mei translates it as burnt bread, which is literal because shiao is to burn, but this pastry is not burnt at all, but flakey and delicious, filled with soft flavorful spiced meat, pickled vegetable, and cilantro.
I also had fresh sweetened tofu served cold.
Lub it.
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Attention Chinese Yelpers:
I really need somebody who speaks Chinese to take me back to Yi Mei!
I had to settle for whatever I could point to behind the counter.
I'll even forgive the C rating.
C'mon. I'm optimistic.
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We actually got up early to take my car into service so we decided to stop by here for Chinese breakfast. The place doesn't look too clean but there's almost always a line.
We usually get the geen onion pancakes and soy milk. It's pretty cheap...under $10 for 2. There's not much room to sit so snag a table while your dining partner waits in line to order the food.
Pros:
Superb Taiwanese/Chinese Breakfast
Cheap
Cons:
Service is somewhat lackey
Place is not really clean
Once in a while, nostalgia will hit you, and if you are Chinese, you will remember that one early morning around 6 or 7 AM, preparing to go to elementary school or just school in general, and you are running late; on your way to school, there are just so many breakfast places like Yi Mei deli co, and chances are you will inevitably run into one of these and pick something up for breakfast. I always have the feeling that everyone there feels what I felt, otherwise we wouldn't pay that much in US as it is very "cheap" in TW/CH/HK. But again, nostalgia is priceless, just like the mastercard commercials.
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This place is scary. Scary because there's so many people literally struggling to get into this place and trying to sit down to eat. Little hole in the wall place in back of Hong Kong Plaza is the hottest spot to be on a Saturday or Sunday morning!
Parking in the plaza gets nuts after 9AM because so many people are hitting up the Deli for their Taiwanese breakfast fix. The alleyway smells like you're in Asia, and everyone from a-mas to hipster TW/HK kids to Chinese Bible study groups to families descend upon this place. Prices are very reasonable (considering you're not buying a plane ticket back to Taiwan for this kinda food!) ranging from about $1 for buns and $3 for Taiwanese donuts with soy milk. I think a dozen xiao long bao comes in under $5.
Finding a place to sit sucks, you will inevitably be sitting next to someone you don't know on long, cafeteria like tables. I think I can remember ONE time my friends and I found a table to ourselves. You can also get your food to go and wait outside. As I said before, the line gets long at about 9AM on weekends, don't be scared off if the line goes out the door. They're usually pretty quick.. and it's totally worth the wait!
It might help if you bring a Chinese-speaking friend along, if you don't speak the language. CASH ONLY!
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Where i get my mandatory TW breakfast fix EVERY TIME i come back to the West Coast. This stuff is just. too. good. Nothing else like it!!!
Yeah, tried this place because of the rave reviews. Let me tell you, it is not a "I don't know what to get because i'm not taiwanese" friendly type of place. Me and my buddies went there and pointed at random stuff in the display because none of them spoke english.
I ended up just picking out the pork sandwich with the sour pickles and a curry bun. What part of the pork goes in that sandwich is a mystery to me but i was spitting out these weird "fat" peices. Bun it was in was damn good though...crunchy...greasy...chewy..but for what...4 bux or so? ehhhh.
Must be a place for taiwanese only or something. Me and my buddies didn't get all the hoopla. I went there for a second time to give it another shot though. Went right before they were closing and when i asked if they were open the owner said yes, so i stepped in...looked around...asked the other lady what was good since i don't know what to get...and then the owner all of a sudden got this look on her face and said they were closed. Haha, forget it, not going back.
Oh, they got a D as well for a rating just so you know.
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Awesome Place~!
This place has the fullest variety of authentic Taiwanese Breakfast items~ It is so complete and satisfactory, I don't see there is any reason for anyone to visit back home in Taiwan!!
Well, may be for the larger quantity of food, and with MUCH cheaper local price when you are actually back in Taiwan.
Gosh, Don't I miss home already~!
I could easily give it a "FOUR STAR" Rating~ but it was off the chart, due to two things...
1. the limited space of the store - about 75% of the time, you will need to wait in a LONG LONG line.... and you still can't locate a seat, then you will have to take out~
So, you either stand there watch other's to wrap up their breakfast while you are staring at them....
Or you will have to chow down the food through plastic begs right on the curbside.........
2. the services isn't really up to American Services Business min. standard..... When the business is good........ they can careless about services.... *that's what I've been told*
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This is a typeical Taiwanese/Chinese breakfast place. The place will not be the cleanest, the food will tend to be with a lot of oil, and the service will not be the best. But the food is DELICIOUS!!!!
This is the best Chinese breakfast place I've been to in the United States, you simply have to go try it yourself. If you're Chinese, then you know what to order; if you're not, sorry I can't really help you out here since I don't really know how to translate those items, but ask for recommendation and you should be fine.
Also, there's usually a long line during the weekends, so my suggestion is to order to-go and wait outside for them to call your order through the side window.
I'm taking one star away simply because the place is not very fancy
Taiwanese breakfast food, very similar to what you might get in Asia. I try to stop by here when I visit LA. Then I discovered the fish ball place next door, which is just as good!
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The only reason this place would get a higher score from me is the fact that they are open early. Other than that, the stuff is kind of mediocre. We drove out there for brunch but since nothing was open that early, we decided to just go to Yi Mei and have a few things to satiate our hunger for the moment.
We got the salty soy milk and an order of scallion pancake for lil guy. First off, it was really cheap, so that's a plus. There was airconditioning and that was another plus. We found seating, yet another plus and so on. However, when they brought the stuff out, that's when the pluses started to become minuses.
The salty soy milk had little flavor, but that was easily rectified by a few splashes of soy sauce, vinegar and hot chili oil. I was highly pissed off at the fact that the soy milk coagulated BEFORE I even put the vinegar in, thus, creating this congealed texture on its own. I like to control how much my salty milk congeals and this was just not right. So what happens after this was that the liquid and the soy separated and the usual yummy experience of salty soy milk turned into a soy bean curdy sort of experience.
The scallion pancake was also so-so. Nothing really exciting at all.
However, 2 bowls of salty soy and an order of scallion pancake came to $6.60. It was cheap, it served its purpose, I may return again should I be in the Rowland Heights area early in the day, however, if other places are open, this would certainly not be my first choice.
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My gf who is also a Taiwanese native took me here. It was packed when we arrived with a line out the door. Barely 10 am on Saturday. I think we were in line for a good 25 min before we got to the front.
Finally ordered our food which was dirt cheap! Gotta love that! $20 for 3 orders of soy milk, yo tiao, dan fan, green oninon pancakes, and turnip cake.
Loved all the food, esp the turnip cake! It came with this really yummy GARLIC sauce.. mmm...
Place was kinda dirty and really packed elbow to elbow.
I would go back but only if I were in the hood already.
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I had really wanted to review the one in San Gabriel but this will do.
I really love this place. It's got everything I want in a traditional Taiwanese breakfast, and the taste is better than Yung Ho Tou Chiang. The price isn't all that bad either. I try to eat there whenever I go home...
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It's the best Taiwanese breakfast restaurant 30 miles radius around Rowland Heights. In fact, Yi Mei serves only breakfast. So you can have breakfast all day! The only reason I didn't give it a five is because its health rating. That's something they could improve a little. Yeah, I know, the die-hard fans probably won't really care because their food is simply irresistible! :)
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Gotta agreed with the brothas and sistahs about this joint. It helps bring back a lot of memories of authentic Taiwanese breakfast food that I missed so dearly.
Back in the scene of the crime where I reviewed Bin Bin Konjac:( http://www.yelp.com/bi... ) This is the location where the sewer smell is very noticeable because your nose will swell. Once I saw the "C" grade placard on the door, I knew I was in the right place. ("C" is still stands for Chinese food!) The funny part is the grade was displayed very proudly by the place...you got love'em!
I got to admit in that I don't wake up often early enough for breakfast or have the time during the week for such a meal. So it was a great pleasure for me to find that they have all these breakfast items served throughout the day.
Obviously they have all the different types of meat buns, onion cake, sesame cake, and other delicious little steamed buns. My favorite is always the ever long dual crunchy Chinese fried donuts (tell-lo-bien). That is one delicious good stuff when it is served warm. All those items are great to go along with a warm steamed soy bean milk to get a good meal started.
For a "C" place, you're not going to get very much except long tables forming a bench. There's plenty of seats in the room, but not much space to move around. It's a bit*h standing in line as you will bump into people sitting at their seats eating.
The service is one of the most friendliest I had ever encounter. Very polite and always accommodating. Especially the fact that they have to follow the LA County Health code by making sure the items are kept in either a cooler or wrapped in plastic wrap. However, if you want to dine in, they can make a fresh batch for you so that you can get it fresh and hot. The staff here treat you like a favorite customer, no matter if you're new or a regular. Very friendly place to be in.
The prices for the food is not bad either. Usually I only wound up spending only $5 or less. Which is a pretty good deal. Just don't expect too much for the decor or ambiance with this location. It's located right next to the supermarket.
I had some of the best comfort food here. I always tried to go past the lunch hour since it's less crowded here. The drawback coming in at that time is also the smell of the sewer stench is strong, so it's a give and take at those times.
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I love coming here to have breakfast with my grandfather. It's very authentically Chinese. It's not clean, but then neither are the places we ate at in Taiwan. Result: happy belly!
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FUGME. I wanted to order everything off the menu last Saturday but only had 2 stomachs to feed. There's 1 thing I've never tried (and probably never will): the SALTY TOFU FLOWER. dude, that just looks digustingly (good?).
Other unmentioned kickarse items: the veggie/pork buns, uber cheap at $1.20, the sliced beef in shao bing - possibly the best version on side side of the Pacific. The freshly made brown mi jiang (rice juice? how do you translate this? definitely NOT rice porridge) which is getting harder and harder to find, even in the SGV.
And of course, the fresh soymilk. I'll contend this is better soymilk than that OTHER place on Valley Blvd...
May the LA County Healthy Department NEVER shut this down. (Girlfriend said: "you know they barely clean this place just above "C" so they can stay open". Yes dear, no kidding. Who cares??)
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After twenty plus years of cultural preaching (more like incessant nagging) rammed down my throat by my parents, I reallly realllly reallly don't know where else to go for Taiwanese breakfast besides here. Sooo, it doesn't get better than this place east of SG Valley. Five stars. Disclaimer: that FDA "C" letter grade in the window stands for Chinese-approved. And it is cheap - $11 gets you small sweet soy milk, small salty soy milk (cultured soy milk), a breakfast rice burrito (yes that is what I am calling it), a fried dough stick and a sesame flat-bread beef sandwich. If you're unfamiliar with Taiwanese breakfast, stick to a sweet soy milk, egg biscuit (kind of like an omelet equivalent), and a breakfast rice burrito. And it's also vegetarian friendly (think fluffy mantos people).
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Possibly the best Taiwanese breakfast I've ever had! Cheap + generous + a low C grade = YUM YUM YUM! My favorite was the rice roll (fan tuan). I can't find rice rolls as fresh as their's where I live (in San Francisco).
JONASAPPROVED!
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This is one of my favorite places to go. Granted it's not an A but they have one of the best soy milks. As for the food... I have to admit there is no complaint from my mouth. Its not a place for people who are trying to go on a diet. There food is pretty much greasy as it comes but it's worth every bite.
my place of choice lately for good eats.
very busy weekend mornings. not so easy to get seating - it's small and cramped. prices are right and the food is damn good.
the dan bing is so f'in good, i can't get enough of it. same with the su beng and xiao lung bao. gwa bao is okay, nothing special. lou bou gaow is okay. i don't know pinyin so i'm just making this all up thx
they also sell their own dumplings - usually 40 for $14.
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As far as the "C rating = Chinese street cred" theory goes, this place defines that and then some. By far the best place for Taiwanese breakfast in the area, and possibly in the entire SGV (maybe even California?).
Like Judy said (I love Judy), this place kicks the MPK location's ass. Read the other comments if you want more details. I just want to comment to boos it's cred because it's that great.
Everything is so greasy and delish...I'm virtually oralgasming just thinking about it.
Go there now. Go there often. Order everything. Get fat. Be jolly.
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DELICIOUS but in a very dirty setting. This is probably how a typical restaurant would look if it was in Asia (you're forced to sit next to people you do not know).
I always get their EGG PANCAKES and HOT SOY MILK (you add the sugar yourself). They have garlic soy sauce at the table and it's great with the eggs. Their BEEF SANDWICHES are really good but I would get it w/out the pickled vegetables (their located right by the cash register). The SESAME BUN is really good but probably not that great for you since it's really oily.
For vegetarians, they've got a really good VEGETABLE BUN.
I recommend you take-out the food so you're not bumping elbows with strangers or getting your elbows stuck to the sticky tables.
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I've been going here to get breakfast for years. This small place is always packed in the mornings which makes it hard to get a seat if you don't go early. It's the only place that really serves a good chinese breakfast with a variety of items such as: [forgive me for my translations] fan tuan (rice rolls), dan bing (egg pancakes), shao bing you tiao, soy milk --sweet or salty, and MUCH more. Everything is made and brought out really quickly and tastes great.
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i wanna go give this place a 4 and half...but oh wells.....
***rice ball***
this thing is so good...sticky rice....dry pork....and "youliao"(a kind of fried bread)...its very crunchy....
***soymilk***
the cold ones are too sweet...but there really wasn't that much of choice for drinks.
***egg on the chinese pan cake***
it's good, i love the chinese onion which was added in there.
***turnip cake***
woooooo, just try it. but it's salty tho, not sweet.
god, there are just way too much options, i wish i can try everything all at the same time.
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ok, so this is the closet place to my house that has the savory soy bean milk/soup that I love but it's defnitley not the best that I've had and the worst thing is, did anyone notice the health inspector rating on the restaurant...it didn't even get a letter because it's at below 69% which is less than a "C"....i don't know if it's worth eating there...I was born and raised in the US...my stomach is not made of steel
**DISCLAIMER: dieters, this is not for you. this place is a carb fest**
there's also one in monterey park, but not as good as this location.
whenever i'm feenin' for a traditional, taiwanese, homestyle, greasey fo-sheezy, breakfast - this is always my preferred, number one destination. if you're taiwanese - you know what i'm talkin' 'bout.
the fried doughnuts average about a little under two feet long of crunchety shcrumptuousness. then there's the soy milk with shredded pork, pickled radish, spiked with a dash of sesame oil, and sprinkled with chopped green onion on top......
oh buddha!
aaaaaagggggghhhhhahghghhghghgg
also the warm rice ball with the shredded pork/pickled veggies, yummy egg pancake, and the sesame seed pastry stuffed with slices of roast beef and pickled veggies.
YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAA.
don't forget the shao bing stuffed with stewed beef (or pork) with pickled veggies. eat it fresh and the shao bing's crispy shell adds perfect texture. the saltiness of the stewed pork, sesame seeds, and pickled veggies just dance in harmony in a mouthful.
YUMMMMMMMMMM!
dining is on the cramped side, and there is limited seating, but that's what you call a real hole in the wall, ya know?? and i dunno........ it seems as though only the taiwanese/chinese folks i've taken here have been able to stuff themselves and savor every moment of this grub as much as i do. these are the treats we taiwanesers grew up on.
you can also purchase their frozen zon-ze, bao-ze and dumplings to go and prep them at home.
and wait - what's that? i hear a lil birdie callin'..
everything's *cheap*cheap*! you can easily fill up yer tummy with less than $6.
when it comes to the inspector rating - this will be the only place where I make an exception!
"C" rating? "C" is for Chinese!
"D" rating? "D" is for Delicious!
:x
.
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This place is the best for authentic taiwanese breakfasts! Order the dan bing (chinese style egg omelett), luo bo gao (white radish cake rectangles with soysauce and garlic, it will make your breath smell after, but its good), and cold bing do jang (cold soy milk). Just look around and see what other people are ordering rather than what is on display. It gets supercrowded in the mornings, so make sure you go early as 7am to get good seats, otherwise you'll needa wait for other people to finish to sit down, and that may or may not take awhile. There are other things to order like the chinese doughnut and other stuff like fan tuan--get the salt version--thats the only one i get, the sweet version is too much for the early mornings, its basically a chinese doughnut with pork sung wrapped with rice. There's also that beef with crispy bread thing--but then again, i don't normally get that. The place is acceptably clean---not anything fancy. There are also these other soups to get--but you may need to share it with a friend, its quite alot actually. But anyways, if you don't know what to order-ask other people, they're only a few inches away from you!
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