C# Entity Framework Linq Where issue

Question

There are two linq queries to MySql DbContext:

var letter1 = (from l in dbContext.letters_incoming 
    where l.LetterText.Trim() == "simple letter text".Trim() 
    select l).FirstOrDefault();

var letter2 = dbContext.letters_incoming.Where(new Func<ModelLetterIncoming, bool>(l => {
        string name = l.LetterText;
        if (name == "simple letter text")
           return true;
        else return false;
    })).FirstOrDefault();

First query returns null, but second returns correct value. Is it may be caused by whitespaces in my Where condition?

Answer 1

the problem was in MySqlConnectionStringBuilder, I added

mySqlConnectionStringBuilder.CharacterSet = "utf8"; 

and it works