Yumbit

Yumbit doesn’t have a website, so I went off the business hours on Unilocal and upon arrival (20 minutes after they were supposed to be open), found they were still closed. There were no store hours clearly posted on door either. Disappointing!

Needs a lot of improvement with the food. Service is great, and they serve free red iced tea. However, the food that we ordered lacked authenticity. Additionally to that, food tastes like either its overnight (side dishes are cold) or it came out of he microwave. Despite that, it is very price friendly and staff friendly.

Being Taiwanese and having been a year away from home, the «Taiwanese bento» sign is what attracted me to come into this place. Based off of three things I ate from the menu, these meals do not compare even with the worst bento shops in Taiwan. Not authentic at all. The vegetables included taste artificial and I feel as if I’m eating prison food. This is a bad representation of Taiwanese and Chinese food in Seattle. Don’t bother wasting your money eating here.

Love the braised pork bento! Good customer service and delicious food. Will visit again soon.

Let me preface this by saying that we have eaten here before, and loved it. Our server was extremely helpful, kind, and the braised beef udon was excellent.
However, I ate here again at 6pm on a weeknight, and I can say that I won’t be returning. The udon was good, again, but we ordered a Taiwanese pork chop dish that came out room temperature and very stale. It felt as if it was cooked hours before and microwaved for 30 seconds.
On top of that, our server was terrible. After receiving our food, I didn’t see her again until waiting at the front counter for 2 minutes and finally poking my head into the kitchen in order to get someone to help me pay.
Lastly, there was a hair in the pork dish. I couldn’t even finish the stale dish after realizing that.
All in all, I was excited to have a new favorite place in U District. Sorely disappointed.

I ordered braised pork bento and braised beef noodle soup and shared a beef tendon with my boyfriend. it was sooooooooooooooooo great! I never tried any Taiwanese food like that around UW. If you r first time walk in, plz plz try the braised beef noodle soup and the spicy beef tendon. the braised pork is also perfect cause it tastes soft, no over cook, no that much dry like other Taiwanese restaurant. I think it could be my favorite place to get food after my evening class every day. next time I will try beef tendon dry noodle and shrimp fried rice. then my feedback will be there soon.

i can honestly say i do not like a single thing about this place. first of all, the service sucks. i’ve been here twice, and for both times it seemed like the restaurant only had 2 employees total — one on the floor and one working in the kitchen. they seat you, then seem to immediately forget your existence until you go up to the front desk to tell the person that you’re ready to order (it happened even yesterday when we were the only customers there).
as for the food, it was very disappointing both times. i have tried their fried rice, beef noodle, and fried omelete entrée and NONE of them were worth the 8-​something dollars i paid for. meat was soggy, rice was soggy, omelette was tasteless. and the wait time for food is always upwards of 20 minutes no matter what you order.
i recommend eating here if you want to blow some money on crappy «taiwanese» food and have nothing better to do!

This was not good. We ordered a B1 and a B3 beef bento and a pork belly bento. Nothing was fresh, except for the beer. We were served our food, beef and rice were dry! YUK, this beef was old. Then the cook came out to chat with a patron. Holly crap! this guy was covered in food slime, no apron no gloves, super disgusting! Lost all appetite and got the heck out, never to return! This food is the worst example of Taiwanese in Seattle we have come across; go anywhere else!!!

I thought it was different from chopsticks, but it was not. I had heard mixed reviews of this restaurant and decided to test it out myself.
I ordered the jian bing which was a chinese donut wrapped in a thin crêpe. This was made to order from the person standing next to the entrance in the little makeshift kitchen. She seemed pretty passionate about her food and asked for feedback. It was good, but the rest of the food was not. I ordered the braised beef in brown sauce over rice. It came with 4 pieces of beef cubes, couple carrots, and shredded potatoes. The rice was leftover rice and was dry.
If there’s one thing a chinese restaurant should get right — it should be serving fresh rice. Overnight rice is only acceptable for fried rice. ²⁄₅ won’t be back.

When it comes to the de facto standard of Taiwanese good-​eats on the Ave, Mee Sum takes the cake.
This Yumbit, which started off as a place called «Chopsticks» could have taken the cake. Chopsticks was misunderstood, a small little Taiwanese food stand that served authentically flavored food. Now that it’s Yumbit with new change in ownership, the quality has completely declined.
Yumbit is a chinese place with some knockoff Taiwanese cuisine. Not worth your time or money.

Loved this place when it was Chopsticks, still love it now with its sweet new digs — much more room to breathe and spread out! Recently took a friend here exclusively to have their braised beef noodle — she had been craving it for some time.
Of course, me being more of a rice person than a noodle person, nothing will ever be as good as their minced pork fried rice (is that what it’s called?). Although, I did try to order it as pork belly over rice (it’s called that at Mee Sum!), and was brought something I was not expecting.
The waitress was kind enough to take it back and get the right dish out to me. Marinated egg and all.
Even with tax+tip, my meal only came to about $ 6

Ordered the special Shanghai food today.
Rice and bean have gone bad. Other dishes are either too cold (just taken out from fridge) or taste really bad.
Never come back again.

Looks like I forgot to write a review last time!
I have been here twice and never actually eat in. The first time I was here, there was only one table available and the other table was occupied by some students. It was crowded and I decided to do a takeout. The second time I was there, it was empty but it was a nice day out, so I decided to do takeout as well. Plus, when I walked in, the lady cashier was talking to the cook. I didn’t want to make it awkward or having to listen to their conversations.
I ordered minced pork both times and they are so good! I think they are under $ 6 after tax. Minced pork is probably popular so they were prepackaged when I ordered them. I was surprised that there was no wait time. If you want to order other items other than the simple dishes, you will probably have to wait for 5 – 15 minutes.
I think this spot is the most ideal for takeout. I can’t say this is the best Taiwanese food ever because I don’t often eat Taiwanese food. But surely my minced pork was absolutely amazing so 5 stars! Plus the cashier lady is always so friendly and nice. She is completely fluent in English so that is always a huge plus!

I had a craving for pad thai this past Sunday. Every restaurant I could think of was either closed or didn’t serve lunch on Sundays. We went so far as settling for fried noodles at a popular neighborhood Chinese restaurant. When we called for take-​out they picked up the phone only to tell us that they don’t open for another 4 hours. Wah!
We were going to go picnic under the UW cherry blossoms anyway so walked around the Ave to find me either pad thai or wok fried noodles. The one Thai restaurant that Unilocal said was open, wasn’t.
So here’s where I saw the short yet sweet menu at Chopsticks in their storefront. Hmm, these are dishes I recognize!!! Taiwanese dishes! Food from my homeland. And they have fried noodles, hallelujah!
Chicken fried noodles and kung pao chicken please! The man at the counter smiled, said it was a good choice, and proceeded to ask if I was from Taiwan. I am! And we bonded upon the discovery that we’re from the same town in Taiwan. Not sure what treatment non-​Asians get from him but he was certainly very friendly with the Chinese-​speaking patrons.
Like many have mentioned, it’s a hole-​in-​the-​wall type place. Not much as far as décor goes and only a handful of seats for dine-​in customers. I would order to-​go if I were you.
The food is pretty tasty – on the sweet side (typical of Taiwanese food) – and you get a whole lot of it. Good value for the taste and amount you receive. There’s cold dishes in the fridge, too, like pork and cow intestines that I don’t eat. Oh, interestingly, the Kung Pao Chicken comes with a soy sauce marinated egg. I can’t wait to go back for more! Green onion pancake with egg, here I come!
P. S. I also got a papaya milk. My adult no-​cow-​dairy and no-​sugar preferences lost to a childhood drink temptation. It was okay (since, you know, I’ve been avoiding dairy and sugar) but you may like it. It just needed a little blended ice to make it better.

Honestly, this place has got to serve the worst food I have ever tasted. I don’t enjoy saying that, but it is true. There was nothing redeeming here. They even managed to overcook the rice. I am peeved.
Nothing makes sense to me in this restaurant. I had the stewed pork over rice, and I am used to stewed pork using pork belly or at least some pork fat. They used like the hardest, driest cut of pork. They store the stewed pork in several slow cookers that it dries out the already dry meat completely and blackens it. It had a similar texture to a rubber band. Is there a word that exists to explain a dish that has not even one dimension of flavor? Non-​dimensional flavor? There are no similes great enough to describe how bad the food is here. No salt, no flavor, and as others have pointed out, the amount of star anise is too overbearing. After the cashier dished out the stewed pork, she also scooped some of the flavorless, black broth over everything else. I will pass!
There is also the pork chop over rice, which is a deep-​fried slab of pork over some rice. The batter pretty much fell off the pork and it was unseasoned. Even subpar Taiwanese restaurants know to put some salt and white pepper in the batter. This dish also had nonexistent flavor. It was just like eating an oily piece of pork. Both the pork chop over rice and stewed pork over rice came with a side of boiled tea eggs, which obviously were overcooked and black. How do you get an egg to turn black? I didn’t taste that much sodium, maybe a black sharpie pen.
This place is relatively new, but all of the seats, tables, and flooring are falling apart and ripping, as if they grabbed the items that not even Goodwill wanted from their donations. I felt very sad when I first came to this place. It does not look like they tried to tidy the place up to appeal to customers.
I thought that it would be a good idea to try some of their cold appetizers that come pre-​packaged. Didn’t think you could screw that one up, but it is possible. The beef tendon was unevenly cut and too thick. No spice, no flavor, AGAIN. It boggles my mind that anything here is considered edible. I took 3 – 4 bites out of everything and decided, no, will never come here again.

Not bad… Not bad at all…
Good to know that there a decent taiwanese restaurant up north.
Price is reasonable… although the pancakes are a bit overpriced…7 bucks for green onion pancakes and eggs?
The beef noodle soup was not bad… meat was pretty tendor…
Everything was relatively healthy tasting… less grease… the one thing, i’m on the fence about is… everything is in crockpots… i dont know how i feel about that… lol
Cheap quick bite… whynot.

This place truly reminds me of those hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurants you’d find on the streets of Taipei.
Keep in mind, this place is TINY, there’s really only two tables with bar stools to dine at so it’s definitely more of a take-​out spot which is quick and easy for college students anyway.
Service is ever-​so-​friendly, and the food comes out quick! They have a fridge full of canned drinks, small cold appetizers like marinated tofu, and other traditional Taiwanese dishes to choose from.
The menu was pretty decent ranging from pork stewed rice, beef noodle soup to fried chicken and rice. My friend and I both had the beef noodle soup and shared the stewed rice as an appetizer. Food is delish and I just loved how it reminded me of Taipei.
If you really want a feel for Asia, grab some food here and head up to Mee Sum for bubble tea afterwards. That’s what we did. :)

7÷18÷14: Edit, the review below was for this business when it was called Chopsticks. I haven’t been back since they changed over to Yumbit.
~*~ Happy 425^th review to me ~*~
Super tasty Taiwanese/​Chinese eats on the Ave.
You can easily miss this tiny storefront. For veterans of the area, this location has been so many businesses, you’re kind of used to things coming and going. But I hope Chopsticks sticks around (heh).
As other reviewers have said, it’s more a take-​out spot than eat-​in. There are 2 tables that seat 3 and 1 that seats 5, and that’s if you’re really crowded in and have tiny plates to eat off. I arrived shortly after 11a, which is a very early lunch and I was the only one there, which was my intent. The man at the counter was super nice and sweet. It was really cute when I placed my order (verbally) and pointed to the menu. He whipped out a magnifying glass to make sure he understood my order. So. Cute.
Then he called back to his mate in the kitchen to make the order. I chose the minced pork bento and two pork bun (listed as Taiwanese bun on their menu), for $ 13. There is a nominal fee if you use a card for charges under $ 10. The food came out several minutes later. I watched as he put everything together and he had a smile on his face the whole time. When everything was tied up he told me «Good food.» I said YES! and thank you as I left.
I had planned on this to be my dinner, and it was really hard to wait. Hours later, and I was ready to dive in. The minced pork over rice is a huge serving. Total comfort food. There’s a tea egg, a tofu cube, some pickled sides. I contemplated adding some of the table peppers but didn’t want to seem like ‘that person’…but perhaps next time I will, because those pepper thingies looked good! The pork bun was stuffed with pork, herbs, and peanuts. The serving seemed huge to me because I’m always sharing my pork bun, but since it was just me, I got the whole thing. hahaha! It was awesome.
I am definitely looking forward to coming back here!

A hole in the wall restaurant that recently opened over the summer. It’s really tiny with only 3 tables, but it’s quite authentic, cheap, and really generous portion sizes! I’ve been here 2 times and really like it.
First time I went, I got the minced pork with noodles (it was pretty good, I usually eat this with rice and so the juice of the meat was diluted in the noodle soup). Also got the chinese sausage fried rice — HUGE portion! Couldn’t finish it all, a little oily, but very simple ingredients used. Watermelon juice — only $ 2, really tasty and cheap but watermelon season is about over :(
Second time I went, I got the minced pork bento. It had quite a large portion of rice with some veggies, pickled veggies, tofu, and an egg. Great deal for only $ 5. My boyfriend got the slow cooked beef bento and it was pretty good as well, but I can say mine was definitely better. Also a very good portion size. We got a soup and it was also very simple, a little oily. It was more like a broth than actually soup.
I really liked this place because they’re really nice, older Taiwanese men who own the restaurant. I would definitely come back and just grab to go :)

Do you remember a place on the Ave called Jack’s Tapas Café, a little past 52^nd Street? It was notable for the fact that every part of its name was a lie; there was no coffee or tapas, and I’m not entirely sure that the elderly Chinese man who ran the place was really named Jack. But whatever his name was, he knew a thing or two about scallion pancakes and hand-​shaved noodles, so Jack’s Inaccurately Named Tapas Café was a welcome addition to the neighborhood.
It eventually closed down, replaced by a place that sells burritos to drunk people. And that was the last I heard of Jack, until I saw a sign down by the 43^rd St bus stop: ‘Jack’s Tapas Café; Opening Soon’. Jack was back, although he ended up renaming his restaurant to ‘Chopsticks’.
The new space is much smaller than the old location. There are a couple of tables, but it’s really a takeout spot. The menu is smaller as well — half a dozen or so rice dishes, and similar number of noodle dishes, as well as some appetizers and snacks. I’ve tried the pork chop with rice, the pork belly with rice, and a couple of the cold noodle dishes. They all came with tea eggs, and an assortment of intensely flavored pickled green things (‘Same as the old place,’ Jack assured me). Reasonable lunch portions for $ 7, although a bit carb-​heavy. The cold noodle dishes are perfect for warm summer afternoons. We don’t have a lot more of those this year, so eat up. (Though there are some noodle soup options for the rest of the year.)
I should also mention the ‘Minded pork bun’. I had assumed that this was a typo for ‘minced’, and was expecting some sort of humbow-​type thing. It ended up being a chunk of braised pork belly with crushed peanuts (I think) and pickled greens, in a folded steamed bun. Taiwanese hamburgers, I’ve heard them called. I can only conclude that ‘minded’ was a misspelling for ‘delicious’.