Los Angeles: Huge Tree Pastry

Instead of heading straight to our Airbnb in Santa Ana from Joshua Tree, we took a little detour to San Gabriel Valley to get Taiwanese breakfast at Huge Tree Pastry:

Even though it was closed for indoor dining, there was still a decent amount of people waiting outside for take out.  We made our selection at the door, picked up our order, and then hightailed it back to our car to enjoy our goodies in the parking lot, pandemic style.

I'm a sucker for green onion pancakes, so I couldn't help but request for one ($4.25):

I usually prefer my green onion pancake thick the way my father makes them, but I can appreciate a thin one from time to time.  Huge Tree Pastry's green onion pancake came piping hot and crispy on the outside.

What Huge Tree Pastry is known for, however, is its fan tuan or rice rolls.  It's essentially a giant rice burrito with stuff inside.  We got the sweet one ($3.75 for white rice), which came with a you tiao (fried dough) and sugar: 

 

The rice to filling ratio was bit off in the sweet one, but the savory was spot on.  We asked for purple rice and added eggs and pickles ($5.75), which resulted in this photogenic beast:

So delicious too!  The pork floss added this slight sweetness, while the pickles brought a crunch and slight tang.  I've had many fan tuan in my life, but Huge Tree Pastry really does take it to the next level.

To prevent us from choking, we also ordered hot sweet soy bean milk ($3.75 for a large): 

It was super hot and took a while before we could drink it comfortably.  

Sitting at home during the pandemic has exacerbated my usual itch to travel.  In particular, I feel like Taiwan has been calling my name.  Alas, Taiwan is limiting foreign travelers to those with business reasons.  (I even looked up how to get Taiwanese citizenship through my parents during the most stressful part of the election...you know, just in case I needed an escape plan.  Apparently, I missed my chance to get it easily before I turned 20.  Sigh.)

Good Taiwanese breakfast places are hard to come by outside of the motherland, but Huge Tree Pastry does it right.  There were so many items on their menu that I wanted to try.  I had to call on all my self-control because I knew this was merely the first stop in our San Gabriel Valley food adventure.  

The next time I'm there though?  I'm going to take out a lot of cash and then go ham.  Who knows when Taiwan will start allowing foreigners in again?  I gotta get my Taiwanese breakfast fix where I can.

Huge Tree Pastry

423 N Atlantic Blvd

Monterey Park, CA 91754

(626) 458-8689