Looks like fried tofu: fooled by the similarity, now what do I do?

[Kat Tanaka Okopnik]

Mom's got access to lots of wonderful ethnic markets. Suburban L.A. is great that way.

She picked up a bag of what she thought was "just like Japanese" deep fried tofu at 99 Ranch. It's clearly Chinese. She tried to cook it the way she'd use the similar-looking Japanese version - quickly simmered in a soy/sake/sugar glaze. The result was...unfortunate. Really chewy, almost inedible. She tried cooking it further, but there wasn't much improvement.

The stuff in question is 3-4 cm cubes, thick skin, not much tofu left inside. (The Japanese version, by contrast, is usually a very thin skin, and lots of white tofu left.)

How *should* she have prepared this stuff for consumption?