**** Well, much like my post on the recently opened Zhengxin Chicken Steak, this was kind of a spur of the moment stop.
The Missus and I were talking about our trip to Taiwan, we'd had such a great time. That's when I made mention of Bopomofo's Grand Opening in San Diego. We've passed Bopomofo so many times in the SGV, it's in the same strip mall as Golden Deli on Las Tunas Drive, where our favorite location of Tasty Noodle House used to reside and had always seem busy. So, of course, now the Missus was interested. I had heard of crazy lines and such, so I told Her we'd wait for a while before visiting, but She insisted on me checking things out.
So, I said I'd drive by when the place opened and if there was a line I'd bail. Well, guess what? It was right at 11 and there was no line!
Sigh…..
So, I decided to head on in and it turned out I was the fourth person in line! I wasn't going to be getting any tea or boba here; that's the Missus's thing. I looked over the food offerings.
Like the Eater's post mentioned, there's a good deal of fusiony items on the menu. And hailing from one of the hotbeds of "regional fusion", I've come to believe that "base/foundation" dishes are just as, or even more critical than the fusion stuffs. So, before trying out the Beef Noodle Soup Sandwich or the Mapo Tots, I thought I should try the Lu Rou Fan and the Taiwanese Popcorn Chicken. But, on a interesting note; the guy behind me started chatting me up and he recommended the Hainan Chicken Tacos. So, I thought why not?
I placed my to-go order, paid, and waited. By the time I paid and walked to the stand up table to wait, the line was creeping to the door.
It did take 40 minutes for my to-go order, so I'm glad I went early. By the time I left, the line was out the door.
So, here's what I unpacked at home.
First up, the Hainan Chicken Tacos ($13.75). These were kinda tiny tacos for almost $14.
The tacos were served on blue corn tortillas, that were very dry, tough, and really didn't add anything to the dish. Likewise the sweet chili sauce provided.
I first tasted the chicken itself, which was not bad; though on the dry side; the "fowl-ly" ginger tones came thru nicely. But it was just lost when using the sauce and the cardboard like tortillas just made things blander.
As for the Lu Rou Fan ($14), you can tell this ain't Taiwan by the prices right? Well, I wasn't expecting Jin Feng Braised Pork Rice. And this wasn't close, but it wasn't terrible.
In terms of texture, the pork was on the tougher side, the rice was hard and dry, and they actually stretched things out with mushroom, which isn't a bad option. The mustard greens really woke you up since it was super bitter. The egg was warm, perfectly cooked, and seasoned. The flavor of the pork was quite anise-cinnamon forward and a bit on the saltier side of things.
Overall, not bad, but I'm not sure if this is worth $14.
And finally, the Popcorn Chicken ($12.50), I chose the "classic version" with dark meat (of course) chicken. I thought this was a decent portion for the price.
Sadly, the chicken had lost all it's crispness during the drive home. It was also on the dry side of the scale. Even after doing the air fryer "revive" step, it was still not as crisp as I like. Like the pork, this was a bit on the salty side of things; but I was happy to note that a decent, peppy pepperiness and the flavor of basil; not sure how that was since there was but a string of fried basil in the box, came 
thru nicely. I believe the the version from Soup du Jour (funny, I thought I did a post on the place, but I guess not?) is better both in texture and flavor.
The staff here were very nice. Wait times and such are rather long right now, but I'll attribute that to being newly opened. It seems, with places like Zhengxin and the soon to (hopefully) open Juewei, Convoy is in its next phase with these fast-casual places that are more targeted to the younger generation. I'm hoping that Convoy district will still cultivate mom-and-pop restaurants though.
As for Bopomofo; my next visit will have to wait, as I didn't think the food was enough to deal with the crowds. Unless of course, the Missus want to get Her tea/boba fix here.
Bopomofo Cafe
7951 Othello Ave. Suite 106
San Diego, CA 92111
Current Hours:
Mon – Fri 11am – 8pm
Sat – Sun 12pm – 8pm
This is what I unpacked at home. There was also two small containers, one with extra "shoyu", with very little shoyu flavor for that version of poke, I ended up not using it as it would have watered down the flavor even more. And the second, when I first looked at it, I asked myself "what the heck is Mul Kimchi doing here? This ain't a KFC place". Then I opened it and the fragrance hit me. I cracked up; it was haupia! A nice little touch.
The fish was decently, not overly coated, the quality, while not as good as HFS was fine. Not too salty, a decent version of Shoyu Poke.
The bread looked like a rolled French Baguette. It was quite crusty, though a bit more dense then what I'd call a typical banh mi. The jalapenos were really mild. There was a thin sliver of cucumber….though I must say that cucumbers are MIA in many banh mi's these days. There was a good ration of pickled veggies to mayo to pork.
The tater tots were nicely fried, crisp, not hard, and the interior slightly creamy. 
As I took my bag of peanut brittle and the fried garlic to the register; the guy in front of me bought a $170 worth of bottled sodas! I asked the friendly cashier about this and she told me "it's totally normal"! Whoa!
This was a huge, but interesting dish. The menu said pork rinds, but this was fried chunks of pork. Man, it was quite porky and full of flavor, but really hard and chewy, like chunks of fried jerky. Make sure your teeth are in good shape if you order this. We enjoyed the yuca. While the exterior was crisp, the interior just melted in your mouth, the texture was amazing! I don't think they do the usual "boil and fry" here. I'd gladly get the yuca again!
Well, the flavor was on the milder side. The skin kind of rubbery. It did better brushed with the jus and put into our air fryer. It was, as with many versions of roast duck these days, very meaty, but quite dry. 
The wings came with a rather large order of Mul Kimchi, crisp, not overly sweet, a good palate cleanser for fry-o-lated foods.
The batter was somewhat crunchy, but it really got soggy quickly. The seasoning seemed quite mild, but I had a raging thirst after eating 6 of these wings. I took the remaining wings home and even tried to revive in the air fryer, but that didn’t work too well. I’m thinking that if I tried this again it would have to be with some kind of sauce; but based on experience with other KFC chains of this ilk, I’m going to assume it’s going to be too sweet and heck, it already gets soggy-mushy too quickly anyway.
Egads! This was a bit too much for the both of us. The egg was slightly overcooked, which isn't too bad. But so was the rice. But the thing that really got us was how overly sour; almost puckery, and sweet this was. Also, the menu said it was filled with chicken fried rice, but other than a few tiny pieces, it seems that the bird had flown the coop?
It wasn't fried quite as well, though it was more highly seasoned this time. I swear they put some togarashi on this which I liked. One the negative side, the cut this time around was thicker, with some fairly large pieces. The thicker pieces were dry and only the thin slices made it thru the meal maintaining some crispness. I'm glad they gave me two slices of lemon as I needed them both. Not as good as what we'd had on the previous visit.
My zaru soba arrived looking pretty much the same as always. The tsukemono, mildly pickled, crunchy, which I enjoy with a touch of shoyu seemed so familiar.
As I will usually do when having zaru soba, I have a taste of the tsuyu straight up. And man, this was potent! Very strong dashi, nice soy sauce tones, quite savory. I'd only be doing a one-third "dunk" of my noodles in this! I added all the fresh wasabi and scallions, and a bit of ginger which really added a pleasurable pungency and palate cleansing layer to things.
