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.

Giang Nan

After a review posted on Chowhound about this place, I decided to check it out. My mom had been there before and said the food was pretty good.

We got to the restaurant pretty early, around 11:15. Giang Nan is located in a small strip mall and the place looks very unimpressive. But the interior is much nicer then you would expect. When we arrived the restaurant was still empty. I let my mom do all of the ordering, but did request some items I had read about. And as usual my mom goes overboard on the number of dishes. We had eleven items total for a table of four, most of it we brought home.

Our meal started of with one of my favorites, on their menu it's called Dried Bean Curd with Vegetable. That might be the most uninspiring name for a dish that is so simple and delicious. Finely minced bean curd is mixed with a unknown Chinese vegetable, a little sesame oil, seasoning and that's it, it's served cold and so good.

Next came the House Special De-greased and Braised Pork Knuckle. This is a braised ham hock with a typical salty sweet Shanghainese sauce. The pork is super tender and falling off the bone. The layers of pork fat melt away from the meat. The meat in this dish is delicious, but there is a lot of fat. They serve some spinach under the pork "knuckle" which soaks up the sauce, so good.

I was pretty satisfied at this point, but we had 10 more items coming. The next few dishes arrived, Sauteed Eel, Shanghai Rice Cake with Chicken, and Roast Duck in Supreme Sauce. The Shanghai Rice Cake was delicious, not over cooked. The Sauteed Eel was okay, much better at Green Village. I did not like the Roast Duck in Supreme Sauce at all, the sauce was overwhelmingly sweet. The next round of dishes arrived, Soup dumplings, Beef Fried Rice, Salt/Pepper Pork Chops and Sauteed Chinese Spinach. The dumplings and pork chops were good, I did no even attempt to eat the fried rice or Chinese Spinach.

The food at Giang Nan was good and the prices were very reasonable. Giang Nan is on par with other Shanghainese restaurants like Mei Long Village and Green Village. Another great option in the San Gabriel Valley.