| Smaller extention to Joy Luck Place in Cupertino Village |
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1040
Reviewed: 11/28/2007
Rating: 6
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Located in the most dangerous parking lot in the bay area, Cupertino Village. There are always close calls when it comes to driving your car here. Be smart and drive your clunker through the danger zone. Joy Luck Place is split into 2 different restaurants. The main room is the expensive restaurant that's especially known for their dim sum on the weekends. The back room is their faster service restaurant. I've heard the smaller restaurant called Bistro or Cafe. Either park in the rear or walk through the main restaurant to the back.
Our host sat us down and completely forgot about us. We sat there for eternity waiting for anyone to acknowledge us. Snail's pace, maybe sloth, or even a turtle. By the time our host took our order, I wasn't feeling excited about this place. I nonchalantly went with shrimp and beef brisket soup.
A fatty beef broth with shrimp dumplings and spinach. Broth wasn't exactly bursting with flavors and most of the beef pieces were bland. The pieces that weren't bland were gamey. I don't know, beef wasn't happening. Shrimp dumplings were the best part of the dish. The shrimp mixture tastes like Har Gow. Noodles were exactly like ramen and they skimped out on the serving. The oddest thing were the HUGE pieces of fat floating in the bowl. Image 7 says it all. I wouldn't order this bowl again.
If I had to make a return visit, I'd order Terry's dish. I don't hate Joy Luck Place, I just don't like the Cupertino Village location. I go to the San Mateo location all the time, I don't have a frickin' clue what happened to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants.
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Reviewer: Terry
Total Reviews: 739
Reviewed: 11/29/2007
Rating: 7
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Needed a quick lunch today, so we stopped by Joy Luck Place cafe to try it out. The place wasn't super packed, but a lot of the tables were full. We were shown a table towards the back and quickly scanned the menus. Sadly service was exceptionally slow. I settled on the shrimp balls and noodle soup. Sounded like just what I was in the mood for. After giving our orders, we waited a long time again. Sadly, I wouldn't recommend this place if you are in a hurry. I saw other tables getting faster service, so maybe it was just a fluke of being at a table stuffed in the corner.
When my bowl arrived, it looked great. Just what I was hoping for, with veggies to boot! The veggies were the first to go, nice crunch and quite flavorful. The shrimp balls were super hot, but very full of flavor - also good stuff. Then I sampled the noodles and almost gagged. They had a supreme chlorine flavoring to them. I thought I was poisoned! In truth, both Jason and I had experienced these kinds of noodle flavoring before but I have never had them to degree of noxiousness. It flavored the broth as well, and I just could not drink the broth (which I like to do after I eat the noodles). I did manage to eat the noodles because I was so hungry, but I was half hoping to get an upset stomach later.
Not sure what the deal is - maybe its a standard taste at Joy Luck, or maybe I just got unlucky and they needed to wash the noodles better or something. I would return to try it again, giving them the benefit of the doubt, since everything else was so good.
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Reviewer: wchane
Total Reviews: 148
Reviewed: 4/21/2008
Rating: 7
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I have mixed feelings about this place. If you wanted quick non-theatrical cantonese comfort food (jook, bbq plate, etc) this is a solid choice if you were in the south bay. On the other hand service is spotty here, the host is bossy, and if you're really unfortunate you'd get a seat that faces the bathroom.
The manu also reflects that of an minefield, and even the usual "can't possibly be bad" items become questionable at best. Portion wise however...it's really filling, but chances are you're going to feel a bit gross after.
After many visits here in the past, I figured I'd return for lunch the other day as I was in the mood for roast duck and bbq pork over rice. I got that awesome table right in front of the men's and women's room. I also got what looked like a huge plate of delicious bbq...however the rice underneath was soaked in some soy duck sauce - talk about sodium intake. Oh...did I mention I ended up in this table because when I got up to use the men's room they let someone else take my table?! outrageous.
Anyways...to make a long rant short. It's good and bad with this restaurant, I also noticed if you bring someone who looks the canton part you're in for a smoother charter.
Would I go back? Sure. On a weekly basis? No. In the near future? No.
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Reviewer: takeru
Total Reviews: 31
Reviewed: 3/22/2009
Rating: 7.5
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Unlike jason, I think the Marina foods parking lot is MUCH more dangerous than this one. We also had a better experience w/ the service here - not exactly stellar, but the brusque, take your order, bring your food, refill your tea, bring your check, quick in/out/next style of service that's typical of most cantonese places I've ever been to.
The printed menu is pretty limited, so make sure you also check out the daily specials flyer before you order.
We had:
Preserved meat, bbq pork, salty egg over rice - this was the weakest dish, the egg was extremely salty to the point where I found it inedible although extreme gurgitator RC had no problem pounding it down. The BBQ pork was decent, not as good as, say, iRestaurant, and the chinese sausage/preserved pork were fatty/chewy and tasted just OK. Probably not a repeat order.
Drunken chicken - tender, juicy, tasty, infused w/wine flavor to the point where you really didn't really need to dip into the accompanying ginger/garlic condiment. Worth ordering again.
Shrimp won ton and beef stew noodle soup - of our 3 dishes this was my fave, it reminded me of what I grew up eating in the City. The won ton were large, mostly shrimp and delectable. Beef stew was chewy, slightly fatty, and had a tasty 5 spice flavor. Noodles were the HK thin egg style and had a nice crisp texture. Broth had a deep, duck-like flavor that made it enjoyable on it's own. Definitely a repeat order.
Prices are in line w/ other cantonese places in the area and much less the fancier joy luck place next door.
Overall I'd give JLB an 8, but am peeved that they don't take plastic so docking a half point for that. |
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