Restaurant: J&J Restaurant
Location: 301 W Valley Blvd, San Gabriel, CA 91776
Date: August 9, 2017
Cuisine: Shanghai Chinese
Rating: Great crab XLB, but rest was just so-so
As part 3 of our mini lunch SGV parley we move onto mini-mall classic J&J.
It’s tucked at the back of the same minimal as Mian, Mei Long Village and Tasty Dining.
The typical pictorial menu.
SGV haunts fall into a couple categories. This is of the 10+ year old “ugly white drop ceiling older clientele variety.”
Crab XLB. This is why you come here. These were the best crab XLB I’ve had. Nice delicate wrappers and lots of solid crab flavor. This should not be confused with a categorical statement that they were better than the best PORK XLB I’ve had — just different beasts. I should have ordered the regular pork ones as the shells were great and so those might also be excellent — but we didn’t.
Crab Rice Cake. Crab in a sort of lightly curried sauce with the chewy Shanghai rice cakes. I liked the cakes and the sauce, but there was almost no accessible crab meat — unless you are a seal or some other animal natural equipped with shell crushing teeth.
Sweet and Sour Pork Chop. Not a bad version of this dish. Sticky soy-sugar sauce, little bits of bone, but very soft accessible meat.
Since this was just a couple dishes as part of a multi-restaurant crawl we only had a few things. The Crab XLB were great, the other two dishes just fine. They used MSG (I could feel it after). The atmosphere wasn’t exactly lively or updated. Service was pleasant.