J&J Jin Jian Restaurant

With Mei Long Village being next door, I've never thought about going to J&J. But my last few visits to MLV, I noticed lines at J&J, so I decided to try it out.

The place seats about 35 people and specializes in Shanghainese food like it's neighbor MLV. The Xiao Long Bao (Soup Dumplings), have been getting a lot of fanfare recently, as well as other steamed dumplings. They have a pretty lengthy menu, with Chef specialties, noodles, dumplings and rice.

We ordered a lot of dishes, our meal started with the following:

Sauteed Spinach
Marinated Smoked Fish (Cold Plate)
Chinese Mustard Greens with Bean Curd (Cold Plate)

The spinach was not the freshest, but it was sauteed nicely with a hint of garlic. Both cold plates were good, but the fish was really delicious. It had a similar flavor to Chinese red braised beef, a little sweetness and some saltiness. The next set of dishes were:

XLB
Scallion Pancakes
Shanghai Noodles
Steamed Vegetable Dumplings
Shengjian mantou

I thought the XLB was good, but not better than MLV next door. The dumpling skins were too thin and broke on contact, letting all of the delicious broth leak out. The Shanghai Noodles looked promising, but lacked seasoning. The Scallion pancakes, were crispy but also lacked salt. I did enjoy the vegetable dumplings and shengjian mantou.

Typical service for a Chinese restaurant in SGV and he prices a comparable. This is another decent Shanghainese restaurant, but there are so many, each with strengths. At the end it just comes down to your preference.