Jianbing in Chicago

Slowly and not very surely this Chinese breakfast staple is popping up at restaurants around town, and the more I consume it the more confused I get about the line between what it is supposed to be vs. what I want it to be.

Granted, I'm not a reliable narrator: my first experience with the dish was at a food truck in Portland, and while I've since searched it out in New York and LA, I've neither had it in Beijing--where I understand it to be, in terms of breakfast staples, the Chinese equivalent of the McMuffin--or tried other regional variations in China. But I've had a couple of good versions and made it myself enough times now to know how the dish is supposed to work--namely, as a conduit of electricity, with dueling textures (soft egg crepe vs. crunchy wanton/cruller) and flavors (sweet chili-esque sauce vs. fermented bean sauce).

None of the three versions I've had in Chicago have that verve.

-Stephanie Izard's Bao Bing serves both sweet and savory versions of what is being called jian bing: the former, with ice cream sandwiched among somewhat traditional jianbing elements, is clever but quickly gets cloying; the latter are really more likely gyros with asian elements, with a bread much closer to shouzhuabing than xanh beo-type egg crepe typical of jian bing.

-Jian, which opened in the French Market in December, serves a relatively no-frills version, with just a single sweet paste, a lot of sesame seeds, and...lettuce. Sigh, lettuce. The absolute wrong texture and taste for the crepe: it just sits there, soggy and watery, as the crepe breaks down. Yuck.

-X'ian Dynasty Cuisine, which just opened in Lincoln Park, serves jianbing under the name "X'ian Style Crepes," though the differences between what it is doing and what Jian is are minimal. Sure, there's no sesame seeds in this version, but the same single sweet paste dominates, and there is an inordinate amount of wonton (like pita in a fattoush salad levels); lettuce strikes again.

In all three versions the herbs and scallions needed to cut through the egg and starch have been absent or underplayed; the texture contrasts that make the dish so great have been out of whack. Lots of improvement needed.

Has anyone found a promising version around town?

Lettuce is par for the course in Beijing, but a spicy sauce option is usually available as well, as it was at Jian the last time I was there. That may kick things up for you. I thought their version was solid, except for the slightly under crisped fried dough. You could easily get it without the lettuce and with extra sauce if that scratches your itch, though.

You may wanna try the one I had most recently in the Richland food court, that was pretty square with the ones I ate in Beijing during my college days. But Jian is about right, too, in my experience :/

I found myself back at the food court tonight, and wanted to specifically report something for chezbrad to try. When I get time to post, I also have pics of the la mian/pulled noodle place which was again tops.

We got a couple dishes from the Tianjin/Tientsin stall, in particular a dish called chao liang mian/炒凉面。This is basically cold, wide rice noodles fried up with egg a la jian bing, but the sauce was punchy and it had some cheap hot dog inside. It was like five bucks and had a good kick, but eat it quickly, doesn't hold well.

I've only had one JianBing--at the French Market, so I have no basis for comparison. But I love their little stand. The owner is friendly and seems genuinely seems genuinely excited to serve the product.

I've ordered the spicy tofu a few times. It comes with face melting chili oil, which may be part of what was missing in the order described above. I enjoyed the difference in texture between the crepe, egg, tofu, won ton and lettuce. It's really different from other options at the market. I'd encourage folks to stop by the stand if they're in the area.