Yong Streetfood

Review

Yes, Europeans eat such things

Photo: Heribert Corn It's a mystery why Rechte Wienzeile is still a bit grubby, why the red light still flickers a bit and why it still looks the way it does in the side streets of markets. Mainly because it's not like that opposite, on Linke Wienzeile, where the boutiques are crowded, where the dentists live, where people sit outside and drink espresso. But because it's like that, a small store on Rechte Wienzeile had been empty for ages and Yi Cheng and Chen Jianyong thought it would be perfect for their little snack bar in the future.
Yi Cheng comes from Beijing and came to Vienna to study, Chen Jianyong is the son of a Viennese-Chinese family of restaurateurs who used to run a restaurant on Rennweg, which Chinese diplomats also liked to go to because it served real Chinese food, chicken feet and tripe.
The idea started with "jianbing", reveals Yi Cheng, a type of crêpe made from mung bean flour and egg, which is actually a typical part of a Beijing breakfast, but has since become extremely popular as a snack and, during her time in Austria, became the object of her longing, says Cheng: "When I flew to China, I always told my relatives to take jianbing with them when they picked me up at the airport.
For two weeks now, they have been making the Chinese pancakes themselves, against the strict advice of their Chinese relatives, who are sure that Europeans would never eat them. And they do so in their small, pretty snack bar called "Monsieur Yong", which incidentally does not refer to the Berlin-Mitte local icon of the early noughties "Monsieur Vuong", but is intended to convey a French-Chinese idea of Chinese crêpe jianbing. The vegetarian version comes with a brown crispy pastry, spring onions, cucumber and coriander (€ 3.80) or filled with chicken ragout (€ 4.-). Not bad, a really generous portion, surprisingly mild, they use salt sparingly for breakfast in China, explains Chen Jianyong. The home-baked, white yeast dough buns for the guabao are not salted at all, so chicken ragout or braised pork have to provide the seasoning, which they do well (€ 4). And then there's hashimaki, a kind of mini version of the Japanese belly-filling snack okonomiyaki, which is wrapped around chopsticks with cabbage and fried in this way. According to Yi Cheng, they brought this back from their food trip through Japan, where it is an absolutely popular event and festival food. It also looks great and tastes kind of weird (€ 3.50). Oh yes, and there's also tea and egg. To sum up: new, handmade fast food from China and Japan, which is served under a roof but is still a bit of street food. Monsieur Yong 6th, Rechte Wienzeile 9a Mon-Fri 11am-8pm, Sat 11am-6pm

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