A food cart in Rowland Heights serves Chinese crepes fresh to order — just like home

I am standing in front of a homespun food cart on a dusty side street next to a strip mall in Rowland Heights, the sun beating down from high up, watching as the proprietor makes circles with a millet and mung bean batter on a big round griddle.

“We got everything from China,” says Cong cong Li, referring to that heavy duty piece of cookware, with two gas-powered burners running underneath. Way back in the day, Li says, people used wood fire to make the street snack she's making now.

Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes, selling $10 made-to-order street snack in Rowland Heights.

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Fiona Ng

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She cracks a couple of eggs over the thin, now crispy layer of batter, which Li says they grind with a stone mill themselves at home. Then a sprinkle of black sesames. Next come the scallions. Then the deep-fried dumpling skin. Li finishes my order off with the requisite sweet bean sauce.

She scoops the scalding hot Chinese crepe right off the griddle into a bag – so fresh it burns to the touch – just like the very first time I had jianbing guozi.

The first bite

It isn’t everyday I get to see this traditional Chinese snack made right in front of me. In fact, the first – and last – time was some 20 years ago when I was leaving Beijing.

Literally, leaving after spending months in the country. To mark the occasion, I decided to take a series of public buses to the airport, an idea that quickly became less cute when I got off at the final stop – and the airport was nowhere in sight.

I dragged my luggage and sheepishly followed the handful of people also hauling bags on a long, long trek to close that last stretch, the sun beating down from high up.

That was when I spotted a homemade food cart selling a kind of a wrap I'd never had before on the side of the road.

Hungry, tired and feeling more than a little lost, I watched as the proprietor made circles with the batter, cracked eggs over it, then drowned it in sauces and herbs.

One bite – a mouthful of soft, crispy, earthy flavors – was all it took. I am no foodie but it was the best food I had ever had in my life.

Ever since, I have been searching for that same taste in the San Gabriel Valley.

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Fiona Ng

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Crepe-making, Chinese street food style, in Rowland Heights

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Fiona Ng

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The SGV crepe cart

Li and her husband have operated their Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes cart near the intersection of Jellick Avenue and Colima Road in Rowland Heights for more than two years, working daily from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Before, Li said they were making Chinese crepes at different night markets and festivals around the San Gabriel Valley. Eventually, they struck out on their own for a simple reason.

“We have to feed our family,” Li says, laughing, in Mandarin.

The crepe, jianbing guozi (煎饼果子) in Chinese, is a common street food in the couple’s hometown of Shandong Province. The traditional breakfast snack is said to hail from the city of Tianjin, a little further north. An exact date isn’t known; many sources cite the year 1933 as the first time it was mentioned in a newspaper, but its existence most likely predated that reference by centuries.

Li says jianbing guozi is common now in many areas across China – customized according to local taste – and of course the snack inevitably travelled well beyond the country.

Cong cong Li at the Chinese crepe food cart she and her husband started in Rowland Heights.

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The search

I didn’t learn its Chinese name until several years after I returned to L.A. and that knowledge set me off on a quest of sorts. The San Gabriel Valley, I figured, has got to have it, right?

It wasn’t one of those epic, exhaustive, obsessive searches , but I always did keep an eye out. Internet searches turned up nothing for many years, and friends also drew blanks.

But by the late 2000s, I noticed the snack creeping up in reviews at this or that restaurant. Now it’s found in many more places. There’s even an entire shop, Me + Crêpe , dedicated to that single dish in Pasadena. Last time I had it was at Tai Chi Cuisine in Irvine, recommended by a Chinese foodie. It was great, but the decorum of being served at a restaurant was ... different.

The discovery

The finished product.

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Fast forward to a week ago. I spotted on Instagram a food cart with a big griddle, tossing me back to that fuzzy, serendipitous day in Beijing. I had to go check it out.

And on this weekday early afternoon in Rowland Heights, the vibe is right — pure street food culture. Customers drive up or dash from their parked cars to put in an order – some biting into the steaming hot wrap right away. When their stand first opened, Li says the majority of their customers were Chinese. Now it's more evened out, as word spreads.

Which is how Angel Cueva found the spot, driving from Whittier after seeing a video on social spotlighting the operation.

“ I don't know, maybe just the cart, the preparation, just looked like it had a lot of good stuff in it, Cueva says. “ When I seen this, I was like, I got to try this.”

Cueva was on the go and said he’d eat it in his car. He texted me later to say he loved the crepe. I took that message to Li.

She says when her family first came to the U.S. more than a decade ago, it was impossible to find authentic jianbing – the way it was made in their hometown. That prompted her husband to come up with a recipe, which he taught Li.

“While supporting our family, we want to promote Chinese food culture,” Li says. “The delicacy has hundreds of years of history. It’s a testament to the wisdom of our ancestors.”

A list of ingredients for the Chinese crepes sold at Yu Ji Stone Mill Chinese Crepes in Rowland Heights.

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