**** J & J Restaurant has closed
Right before the New Year, on one of our road trips to LA, we were in the mood for some Xiao Long Bao(soup dumplings), but instead of Mei Long Village we decided to check out J & J Restaurant. We've always found it somewhat interesting that both J & J and Meilong Village occupy the same strip mall, and co-exist just a few doors down from each other.
On this day the tiny, simply furnished restaurant was hopping……
The Missus and I always appreciate servers who work with no wasted motion, and the two women working today were working with efficient precision. Containers for leftovers were brought to the table with the check, and tea was dropped off on one table as the server walked to the table directly next to it to take an order.
We looked over the menu even though we knew what we were going to order.
We started with the Xue Cai Rou Si Chao Nian Gao($5.25):
We didn't care for this much, the Chao Nian Gao(stir fried rice cake) had been over cooked and was mushy, the Xue Cai(mustard greens) had no flavor, and the dish had a sort of "fishy" aftertaste.
Of course we were here for Xiao Long Bao, and in case you think I needed any help in selected which XLB's to get…something like this will usually seal the deal. Crab being prepared for the XLB.
So of course we started with the Pork and Crab XLB's($5.95):
The 8 good sized XLB arrived perfectly steamed. I found the wrapper to be a tad thicker than the wrapper at Mei Long Village, the very tender filling had a mild flavor, that leaned a bit toward the sweeter end. I thought these were good except for one thing; the soup to meat ratio was way off…we both thought that the XLB had too little soup in them.
Not satisfied with one order of XLB, we also got the Pork XLB($4.95):
These come 10 to an order, and were steamed and served in perfect condition. The Pork XLB had a bit of a stronger flavor, that went well with the soy-vinegar-ginger dipping sauce. But the meat-soup ratio on these seemed to be a bit off as well. In the end, I guess we enjoy a bit more soup in our Xiao Long Baos.
Still, because of the close proximity of the two restaurants, and the very reasonable prices, you can probably do a XLB "crawl" and make up your own mind as to which XLB you prefer.
HC of LA and OC Foodventures has a nice post on J & J Restaurant.
J & J Restaurant
301 W. Valley Blvd.
San Gabriel, CA 91776
An interesting observation…..
I don't know if anyone has noticed this….in fact I'm surprised that the ever observant Andy hasn't mentioned this on his blog, The ABC. After our meal at J & J we walked over to the snack shop in the strip mall next door, so the Missus could get Her shaved ice. While walking we simultaneously looked at each other and went…"what is the deal, with all of the Foot Massage places?"
So what is the deal? I decided to take photos of the Reflexology/Foot Massage shops we found just from walking from one strip mall to the next….less than a block. And here's what we found:
There's even a little price war going on in this strip mall……on one side of the mall, it's $20/hr:
Directly on the other side, it's $15/hr:
I know that with all the restaurants, and other businesses, that workers in the SGV are probably on their feet alot….but man, that's alot of tired feet.
Or maybe San Gabriel has a foot fetish??? We call it the San Gabriel Foot Fetish.
There must be over 30 Reflexology/Foot Massage studios on Valley Boulevard….for some reason we found that to be rather odd…….