Pidan Doufu at I-Tea Cafe - Irvine
Yes, there is silken tofu, which exists in a white, pristine, Jell-O like cube that wiggles. There is pork sung, those furry brown things that look like the floor after a very shaggy dog gets a trim. And there is perhaps the scariest item of all, a thousand-year-old egg, a chicken ovum that has been buried in ash until its albumen turns coffee black and the yolk a not-of-this-Earth blue.
Together they form pidan doufu, as classic a combination as PB and J, but way better than that. It's served chilled, so it's cooling, almost spine-tinglingly so. It's also refreshing, the kind of snack that you want during a heat wave.
Key to the experience is that weird-wonderful egg--and you savor it and relish it as if it were the last piece of bacon on your BLT. Don't squander even a morsel of it. A perfect spoonful will have every melting piece of soft soy curd paired with little bit of it, some of the sweet brown sauce, a few clumps of that furry stuff, and the scallions for that herby kick at the end.
I've not found a place that doesn't do this well, but I-Tea Cafe was a surprise because:
1) They offered it to begin with since I was operating with the (incorrect) assumption it was just a boba joint.
2) It turned out to be one of the best renditions I've had in a while.
So eat one for yourself and tell me it isn't the best one of these you've had, which, yes, admittedly would be easy to say if you hadn't had it before.
I-Tea Cafe
15435 Jeffrey Rd.
Irvine, CA 92618
(949) 551-4832
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