A former engineer sells rare doughnuts at a Bay Area shopping center

From the outside, Union City’s Alvarado Plaza looks like any typical shopping center. It has a Rite Aid, a Bank of America, and a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen. But tucked within the strip mall is a tiny bakeshop making pastries that are anything but ordinary.

Last August, DoughWeiMe took up shop at 31858 Alvarado Blvd., where it has been dazzling locals with gourmet fried doughnuts similar to malasadas. Since shifting from a pop-up to opening its first brick-and-mortar, the bakery has seen customers from all parts of the Bay Area line up to get their hands on its fluffy stuffed doughnuts.

Just before 9:30 a.m., the day’s work is in full swing as a small team of bakers prepare dozens of doughnuts for the shop’s 10 a.m. opening. A group of customers has already assembled outside the storefront, periodically peeking inside the window as they wait for the doors to open. Before long, DoughWeiMe owner Wei Phung emerges from the kitchen wearing a green floral apron, a ponytail, and a friendly smile to greet her customers. 

Phung chose to specialize specifically in brioche-style doughnuts when she started the business.

“I have always been passionate about baking,” she said. “I would like to do one thing and do it really well.”

And she does. At DoughWeiMe, customers eat with their eyes before they even savor the pastries. Trays of sugar-dusted doughnuts stuffed with cream filling are neatly arranged behind the glass display. Some are topped with fresh strawberry slices while others come with a gooey marshmallow topping. Each doughnut is priced at $6, certainly more than a classic doughnut, but the gourmet pastries are harder to come by among Bay Area shops. 

Making a gourmet doughnut is involved. As I watch them prep, one baker uses a pastry torch to carefully caramelize dusted sugar onto a crème brulée doughnut, while another cuts tiny slivers into dozens of brioche circles awaiting cream filling. Pastry chef Nolan King opens the proofer and grabs a tray of fluffy dough mounds and then transfers them over to a rack. Once they’re in place, he gently lowers the rack into hot oil so the doughnuts-in-the-making get a quick dip. After a minute, King flips each round to reveal a beautiful golden hue seared onto each pastry.

While the expert bakers make it look easy, creating brioche-style doughnuts is a labor-intensive process because everything is handmade from start to finish. It all begins with quality ingredients that include Kerrygold butter, used both to enhance flavor and soften the dough, as well as King Arthur flour. Everything is mixed into a soft dough that requires a minimum of 48 hours rest. Because of this fermentation process, each doughnut gains better flavor and structure, Phung said. After proofing, the bakers portion out the fluffy dough, pre-shape it into pieces, and let the rounds rest for a final rise before they hit the fryer. Separately, Phung and her team work on the doughnut fillings.  

Doughwei me has a weekly selection of about eight doughnuts on the menu, which keeps things interesting for Phung, who doesn’t like to limit the pastries to a particular set of flavors. Instead, she takes inspiration from past pastries she’s created, food she enjoys and, simply, flavor combinations that work. DoughWeiMe’s top sellers include mango, guava cheesecake and strawberry, as well as a baked Alaska-style doughnut called chocolate Alaska, which is topped with a house-made roasted marshmallow.  

The shop isn’t limited to sweet doughnuts, either. Phung and her team have a few savory doughnuts in rotation. There’s a Norwegian smoked salmon doughnut and the “everything seasoning” doughnut, which is immaculately coated with black and white sesame seeds, filled with whipped cream cheese and looks remarkably like its bagel counterpart. The exterior of the doughnut is also slathered with garlic butter that delivers tons of umami.

Phung’s trajectory into baking isn’t conventional. Years before launching her own business, she spent about 12 years in the aerospace industry. She moved to the U.S. in 1998 from her hometown of Shenyang, China, enrolling at Iowa State University to study aerospace and mechanical engineering. When she graduated, she landed a job working as an engineer focused on military helicopters. At first, she loved it, but then the long hours behind a blue computer screen became overwhelming. To balance the stress of work, Phung picked up baking — first as a hobby — not realizing that it would lead to a new career.

Phung finally quit her job when her family packed their bags for Michigan in 2010. She decided to take her baking skills to the next level and soon took a gig at a Korean bakery, where she learned to make scones, among other pastries. As she cultivated the new skill set, Phung recalls feeling an enormous sense of self-doubt and worrying about what her family might say about her sudden career change. Back in China, her father was an aerospace engineer and university professor. She was surprised when her parents were supportive. 

“Their reaction was the opposite of what I thought they would say,” Phung said. “They were worried of the physical labor involved in baking but they’ve been supportive all these years.” 

Phung managed to overcome her insecurities and dove headfirst into the culinary arts. The Phung family moved once more to the Bay Area in 2014, where Phung gained more experience working at Alexander’s Patisserie in Mountain View, Mademoiselle Colette in Palo Alto, and Bun Appetit in Fremont.

All the while, she was developing an appreciation for French pastries. After coming across a brioche-style doughnut recipe by Bread Ahead Bakery in London, she became obsessed with developing her own version and perfecting it. 

“I played around with that recipe to see how it could get better. … Now it’s a much different recipe,” Phung said. “I have a lot of experience with the brioche. This is more fun than other [pastries] I have done before.”

Flash forward to 2021, Phung decided to launch DoughWeiMe first as a pop-up at the Niles Farmers Market, after her friends insisted she should start her own business. They even helped her come up with the name DoughWeiMe — a play on “Do-Re-Mi” that combines Phung’s name and her love of baking.

A year after opening, DoughWeiMe hasn’t slowed down. Since the bakery is only open for a few days a week, customers tend to come in earlier to avoid missing out on their favorite flavors, Phung said. She recommends that customers show up at 11 a.m. when business tends to slow down just before the lunch rush.

DoughWeiMe also feels incredibly homey: It’s a family affair. Phung’s husband Kenneth helps run the day-to-day operation while daughters Zoe, 8, and Lucy, 13, also work there, when they’re not being home-schooled. Lucy assists with packing doughnuts behind the counter while Zoe keeps a close eye on the bakers in the kitchen.

“They love to see what I do,” Phung said. “I want to pass some value on to them.”

The brick-and-mortar is simply a love letter to Phung’s passion for baking and the embodiment of her determination to reinvent herself. As for her customers, they couldn’t be happier that she put aerospace engineering behind her and never looked back.

“I never thought I would open a bakery in my whole life,” Phung said. “It’s really about what you love to do in life that matters.”

DoughWeiMe, 31858 Alvarado Blvd., Union City. Open Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.