Xinjiang Skewers and More at 818 JN Kitchen

In northwest China, there is a region known as Xinjiang and although lamb is rarely eaten in other parts of China, Xinjiang is known for its barbecue lamb or mutton. In fact, the Mongolian tribes who inhabited these areas were the ones who introduced lamb to the rest of China. Due to its geographical location, the food of north western China has been influenced by both Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine, which can be seen in the use of cumin in their cooking.

One of the most popular ways to prepare and eat the lamb or mutton is cut them in chunks, do a dry cumin/chili pepper spice rub on them, pierce with wooden skewers and then grill on a coal-fired barbecue. Considering how compact these skewers are, they have become a popular street-food staple in Beijing and now can be found in the city of San Gabriel.

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Open for more than a year, 818 JN Kitchen is tiny. Their dining room can probably only fit 14 to 16 people at one time and part of the kitchen where all the grilling happens is the size of a phone booth. What it lacks in size, 818 makes up for in a variety of tasty skewers and other foods that will definitely not break the bank. In fact, most of the menu items were priced at $6.99 or lower with skewers that range from $1.20 to $5.00 a piece. This is recession dining at its best. After my group settled down and checked the menu, we placed our skewer orders and decided to share some other dishes as well.

The first to arrive was the Special Home Guoba Soup. It was the least popular dish of the table. The soup seemed more like a gravy than broth and no one knew what to make of the torn pieces of what seemed like crepes that filled the bowl. I was pretty ambivalent about it myself. I didn't dislike it, but I was fine with just having a small sampling before moving on to the next dish.

A plate of Oil Pancakes soon arrived. Another thing that Northern Chinese cuisine is known for is their breads, which is why this made it to our table. Unfortunately, I would have been fine without it. It was very dense and dry. Perhaps, this oil pancake wasn't meant to be eaten alone, but torn in pieces and dipped in a stew or hot pot? Whatever the case may be, the oil pancakes were disappointing.

The next two dishes turned everything around. First, there was the Beef Pancake, which was a Pac-Man looking sandwich and one definitely worth chasing and devouring. Basically, you had something like a roast beef with cilantro and green onions between a toasted sesame bread. One is a snack, but two or three of them could be dinner. What are sliders again?

Then there was the Cucumber Salad with a sesame paste. It was so refreshing and I loved that the cucumbers were so crunchy and juicy. Our table loved it so much, we ordered a second plate just so everyone could get second helpings.

The last two dishes we shared arrived in between the skewers. One was the Pork and Leek Dumplings. The dumpling wrapper was thicker than I would have liked and although the filling was a bit oily, it still had good flavor.

The second one was a plate of pickled mixed vegetables, which was also both refreshing and crunchy. These vegetables acted as the perfect foil for the highly seasoned skewers, almost like a palate cleanser.

So now let's talk about the skewers. While I did mention that Xinjiang is known for their lamb skewers, there's actually quite a variety of other grilled meats offered at 818 JN Kitchen. Along with lamb, there were organ meats like lamb kidneys and chicken hearts as well as chicken, shrimp, quail eggs, corn and even yellow grouper.

The first skewer that hit my plate was the lamb. Considering the meat had a dry rub of cumin and chili peppers, the flavors were intense. One of my dining partners created a mixture of soy sauce and chili sauce in a plate to dip her skewers in and I soon followed suit. It added even more zing to the meat. As for the lamb itself, it erred more on the dry and chewy side, but that worked for me.

My next two skewers were the Chinese sausage and quail eggs. Although the Chinese sausage was a bit salty, I would order it again. Like the lamb, it was both chewy and also bold in flavor. It was actually almost cute seeing the little quail eggs on the skewer. They were a bit over boiled, but I still enjoyed them.

The grilled steak wasn't on skewers and the meat was a bit tough, almost like jerky, but still no complaints from me.

Next to last was the grilled corn, which wasn't seasoned at all, but perhaps, it's not meant to be.

Last, but not least, was the grilled yellow croaker fish. Of all the skewers, this was the mildest in flavor. I'm not sure whether they forgot to crust it with the cumin and chili pepper or they did, but the cumin and chili just did not adhere well to the fish skin, but in the end, it was crispy and the fish meat was quite delicate.

To end, there are a couple of things I do want to point out. One, the quality of the meat may not be up to par for some. As long as you don't expect tender cuts of meat and are fine with the meat being grilled to the point of being chewy, you'll be good. It's really all about the bold seasoning that make the skewers the stars of the show.

Also, since the same cumin and chili pepper seasoning is used and depending on how many skewers you eat, they all may start tasting the same. I think ordering the cucumber salad and/or the mixed vegetables and eating them in between the meats can give your tastebuds a rest in between bites. Finally, English is pretty limited at this restaurant, but the menu is in English, so there shouldn't be a problem pointing out what you'd like to order.

Overall, I really enjoyed my meal at 818 JN Kitchen and I didn't even have to sell my car to pay for my share of the meal. One thing I also learned while I was there was that the owners are all friends who are actually from Xinjiang and decided to open this restaurant together, which definitely tells me that this restaurant really does know its Xianjiang skewers.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157617898390596/

818 JN Kitchen
818 E. Valley Boulevard
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 307-5128




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Chinese Hot Pot at Little Sheep - CLOSED

After my first Chinese Hot Pot experience at Mon Land Hot Pot City which I really enjoyed, I was really looking forward to experiencing Little Sheep. I heard tales that the soup tastes quite medicinal, but that the various herbs and such that go into the soup are actually good for me, so off I went.

Before I even go into the food, I have to say that the service at this particular location was not very good. It took awhile for our order to be taken plus it took repeated reminders that they forgot our lamb pancakes before we got the dish and even then, we didn't get our order until towards the end of the meal when we had already gotten our check. Asking for and getting water was also a trial in itself. Service to me is a big thing and the poor service at this San Gabriel location of Little Sheep really brought my rating down.

Now on to the food. What was nice is that we got three complimentary appetizers, which were all quite tasty. We had cooked peanuts, daikon which I think was pickled and also little bread pockets. Soon after, we got our soup, half spicy, half mild.

Looking into the bowl, there definitely was a lot of stuff in there. Herbs, roots, peppers, etc. were all floating to the top. I almost asked, "Where's the Soup?" The soup did smell good and as our veggies and meat arrived, we all dug in.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the soup that much. I wanted to and I did eat my fair share of it, but that medicinal taste that I heard about really reared its ugly head. It had a tangy, somewhat bitter taste to it that just didn't appeal to my palate that much. The addition of the vegetables and meat helped somewhat with the soup's flavor, but just having a spoonful of the soup by itself was not very tasty.

At least, a highlight of the meal was the crispy scallion pancakes. Yummy! Definitely light, crispy and with great scallion flavor. I wish I could say good things about the lamb pancakes, but I found them to be very greasy, from the surface of the pancake all the way to the greasy meat inside. Yuck! Those lamb pancakes definitely were not worth the wait.

So would I go back to Little Sheep? No. While I liked some of the sides, the soup just didn't do it for me. So for now, I'm sticking with Mon Land Hot Pot City.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157594584718477/

Little Sheep
227 W. Valley Blvd.
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 457-5599

101 Noodle Express

On the last day of 2006, I finally got to experience the food at 101 Noodle Express. I liked it so much that I went back a week later, so basically, this review is based on items eaten at both meals. For my first visit, my group and I sampled 7 dishes and of the 7, I'd order 4 of them again.

Of the three that weren't on my hit list, two were dumplings. After seeing the variety of dumplings available on the menu, I was really excited and was thinking that I also found a new dumpling hangout. Unfortunately, I didn't care for their particular style of dumplings. The dumpling skin was too thick, which may have been okay if the filling was good; however, I found both the vegetable dumplings and the pork fried dumplings uninspiring. Both were just bland.

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I also didn't care for the Dan Dan Noodles. Although I liked the spiciness of the sauce, the noodles were just too starchy for me and I didn't like how they stuck together.

There was still plenty to be happy about especially with the 4 dishes that made me a very content diner indeed. Of course, there was the Beef Roll which is basically the restaurant's signature dish. The crispy texture of the wrapper with the tender beef and peppery greens was a wonderful melding of flavors.

We also enjoyed the Shang Dong Chicken, which was a cold chicken dish that had a nice balance of flavor because of the salty and sweet soy sauce that it was marinated in.

To warm ourselves up, the Oxtail Noodle Soup did the trick and also made our palates happy with the rich, meaty-tasting broth and noodles that still had a nice medium texture to them.

The last of this meal involved the House Pan Fried Cake. We actually had no clue what this dish was but ordered it anyway. What we found was a dish that consisted of the wrapper from beef roll that was sliced and pan-fried with bean sprouts and green onions. The texture of the crispy wrapper and the slightly juicy bite of the sprouts went well together.

Overall, it was a great lunch and a week later, I went with a friend to have dinner there because I really craved that Beef Roll. :) With only two of us, we ordered 5 dishes. Of the five, the Beef Roll was again a pleasure to consume. 2 of the 5 were interesting in that the menu description didn't quite match what actually arrived at our table. Shredded Tofu, which we thought was a hot spicy dish, was actually cold tofu "spaghetti" with carrots and green onions. The tofu was tossed in some kind of oil which may have been mixed with something else. I wasn't completely sure, but I just remembered that there was something nutty about how the tofu tasted.

The Leek and Egg Omelette, which we thought was actually leek and egg omelet, came out looking like an empanada which was stuffed with chopped leeks and scrambled egg. The pasty part of this omelet aka empanada was lighter and flakier than a traditional empanada. I actually found this dish to be bland and it was only until I dipped it in a combination of soy sauce and chili sauce that it was tasting better.

My friend and I also shared two different soups. One was the Green (Mung) Bean Porridge and I'm never going to order that again. It was tasteless soup that was really watery when I was expecting a thicker "porridge" consistency.

The second soup was the Sweet and Sour Soup and wow, was that delicious. When we first saw it on the menu, we thought that it was a typo and that it should be Hot and Sour Soup. After taking the first spoonful, this soup really did have a sweetness to it that was surprising, but then you also had the the sour and also the hotness flavors to go with it, which all made for a very delicious soup.

The second foray to 101 Noodle Express had less than 50% success rate food wise, but the dishes that were good really shone.

In general, I really liked 101 Noodle Express. I enjoyed some dishes better than others, but I'd rather recommend a restaurant where there are a few really great dishes than a restaurant where everything was just okay. If you ever get a chance to visit 101 Noodle Express, be sure to order that Beef Roll. It's worth a drive to Alhambra just for that.

101 Noodle Express
1408 E Valley Blvd
Alhambra, CA, 91801
626-300-8654 ^

Mon Land Hot Pot City

Having enjoyed Shabu-Shabu in the past, I was really looking forward to checking out the Chinese hot pot version and for my first experience, I visited Mon Land Hot Pot City in San Gabriel with "Bon Vivant" and other members of our dining group.

Upon being seated, we were asked for our soup preference: mild, hot or both. We opted for both and what came out was this silver yin and yan bowl with one half having what they referred to as the "red" soup and the other half having the milder soup.

Both soups had an abundance of herbs, roots, peppers, gingers and green onions that were used for the broth flavoring. Both soups were great for different reasons. The "red" soup had the spicy factor and a lot of flavor. It could have been a bit hotter, but compared to the use of just plain water for shabu shabu, it was a much welcomed change. The milder soup was richer, had a surprising curry flavor to it and also had some unexpected heat.

The food we dipped in our soup ranged from lamb and pork to tofu, shrimp balls, daikon radishes and these really cool noodle bundles. The noodles were wrapped up in a nice little package. I was expecting them to fall apart after cooking but they stayed amazingly intact and I really enjoyed how the soup got caught in all its nooks and crannies.

We had 5 different sides with our soup, but what stood out for me was the lamb pancake and the lamb dumplings. The lamb pancake was golden brown and crispy and the meat inside was moist and I liked how the green onions added additional flavor. The lamb dumplings were amazing. You take one bite and get this delicious rush of broth into your mouth. Now those were juicy dumplings.

Overall, my first Chinese hot pot was a smashing success. We came out of Mon Land, feeling all warm inside from the delicious meal. I would definitely make a return trip and am looking forward to checking out Little Sheep next year to see how it compares.

To see pics, go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/la_addict/sets/72157594429439793/

Mon Land Hot Pot City
251 W. Bencamp Street
San Gabriel, CA 91776
(626) 289-4889