Hello everyone, Mr. JOC here to share a restaurant review. It’s been awhile since I’ve written one not because we’ve stopped trying new restaurants, but between learning how to make food videos and working on secret project “X”, I haven’t had time to do much else lately.
Today the restaurant Jai Yun I am reviewing is quite unique. Located on the edge of San Francisco Chinatown, most people would walk past its nondescript exterior without noticing it.
Before I get into the review, a bit of background. We eat out about twice a week, and most of the time it’s Chinese food. It works out for us because besides getting a great meal at dinner, there’s usually enough leftover to pack for lunch the next day. More often than not, we usually end up eating at Little Shanghai in San Mateo. It’s our family’s favorite Chinese restaurant and we think others agree as well, based on the long lines out the door during meal times. When we want fancy Chinese food, we like Koi Palace in Daly City. In addition to their fabulous dim sum, the geoduck sashimi, Peking duck, and Shanghai style crab are some of our favorites there.
When our friend suggested Jai Yun in San Francisco for a get-together, we were intrigued because we’ve never heard of it. What makes Jai Yun so unique? It doesn’t have a menu, you simply pick from a preset price and wait for the chef to surprise you.
For our dinner that day, there were 8 of us and we had opted for the $65 per person meal. Between Nami and myself it would be over $150 with tax and tip, and that’s more than what we usually pay for 3 meals at Chinese restaurants. For comparison, a 3 course meal at Michelin starred Gary Danko is $73.
The course meal started with an assortment of twelve cold dishes (see cover photo) followed by hot dishes. The cold dishes included sliced beef, Chinese ham, radish, cucumber salad, vegetarian chicken, tofu salad, spicy cabbage, gon chai (name of Chinese vegetable), sliced pork, mushroom, broccoli, and lotus root.
Spicy Cabbage
Enoki Mushroom
In general, each cold dish was done quite well, no complaints about the flavoring. There were one or two cold dishes that stood out as extra tasty, like the spicy cabbage and the enoki mushrooms. However the quality wasn’t much different from the $5 appetizers I could order from other Chinese restaurants. The biggest issue our dinner group had with the appetizers was the portion. There were literally enough for 1 bite for each of us before each dish was empty.
Before we had dinner at Jai Jun, I had read the very extensive 3 visit review at CookingForEngineers. With the overwhelming positive recommendation, we had pretty high expectations. After the cold dishes were served, we had thought they were not bad, but the quantity should be double or triple the amount.
Unfortunately, the same theme continued for the entrees. The entrees were delicate and prepared well, and there were 14 of them. Once again, one bite each and entire plate is empty. For example, the taro ball with pork was quite delicious. Deep fried taro with tender pork rib in a sweet and savory sauce, but not everyone got a piece of the pork rib.
Mung Bean with Chinese Ham
Crispy Fried Orange Beef
Abalone with Egg Whites
Pork Shoulder
I won’t go through the details for each dish since CookingForEngineers had done a tremendous job and there are plenty of Yelp reviews. From our perspective, here is our final verdict.
1) The food was delicious, but not super outstanding where we feel like we would want to eat there every other week.
2) Based on previous reviews I’ve read, the mystery menu seems to be more or less the same.
3) The quantity of food needs to be doubled, for both the cold dish and entrees.
4) If it was $30 a person, it would be a fairly priced meal. At $65, our expectations were much much higher and somewhat disappointed.
At end of the meal, we did get a surprise from the chef displaying his knife skills. He was blindfolded and sliced a cucumber on a restaurant workers’ back into very thin slices. Enjoy!
cold dishes, I don’t really like cold dishes.
The crispy fried orange beef and the abalone look so gorgeous, and so are the rest of the dishes. The cold starters sound great! Seems to be a nice restaurant!!
That I agree is expensive specially when you say its not that great.
Gee, that poor worker. Maybe the high prices are to pay him extra for the use of his back. Thanks for the honest review. Sounds like the restaurant has a great concept but could use some improvement in the follow through department.
Perhaps, but for the price I had expected to see him swallow swords as well after… LOL
The review is such fun to read 🙂 I would like to eat here, though I too think it’s quite quite pricey. The chef is a talented man no doubt, though I wish he did not use that half naked man as his cutting board…..made me a bit uncomfortable, especially as it is a restaurant.
I don’t think I would like to have someone cut a cucumber on my back, especially if they’re blindfolded – and no matter how good their knife skills are! It’s probably good that an employee has to be the victim and not one of the customers. That does seem like quite a pricey meal xx
Too bad the portions were so small and the prices so high! Those prices really are awfully high. Really informative review – thanks.
Looks like it was a surprisingly wonderful and delicious experience, Nami! Thanks for sharing!
Great review, thanks for sharing your experience. The food looks delicious but does sound a little bit pricey for what you get. Our family tried Koi Palace the last time we visited SF too but will keep Little Shanghai in mind for next time as well. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Nami and Mr. JOC,
I had never heard of Jai Yun even though I grew up in the City. I do remember coming across photos from Nami’s IG and looked up Jai Yun on Yelp. The reviews were hit or miss and the photos on Yelp didn’t make the food look as good as the photos you’ve taken.
I have been to Little Shanghai in San Mateo and agree that the food is delicious. Have you tried Noodle Shop on W. 25th (just on the other side of Little Shanghai)? It’s a small family owned business and the food is good too.
Hi Candice,
We’ve tried the noodle shop on W 25th and think it’s good as well. However our daughter loves the Shanghai noodle at LS so she always requests we go there.
Thank you for your suggestion!
I’ll definitely pass it to my friend who’s in SF right now 🙂
I feel like restaurants try to hard today to find a unique concept, instead of working on a unique menu. Here in Montreal, we have this restaurant that is also a big “haunted house” with actors, and my mom went and said there are ghost actors that kept on scaring her to the point she would jump, and it made it hard to enjoy the meal, as she started having hiccups from too much scare-stress. Also, if you went to a chinese restaurant and you think they should have doubled the quantity, something is wrong, i order a chinese meal for one, there is enough for 2 and you still have leftovers for lunch…
LOL, I can only imagine the terror your mom went through during dinner. I guess restaurants are always thinking of something new to attract customers. Recently a Ninja restaurant opened in Tokyo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=950TrPbsG-w#t=81), perhaps you can suggest this new adventure for your mom 😛
My time to LOL, do they even show the food or happy customers once? Ninjas are cool, but this video didn’t scream: “NINJAS CAN COOK TOO!” Stop practicing your ninja moves and go back to your kitchen! Still, thank you for the video, it was entertaining!
Thank you Sunny! 🙂
The cold dishes look great. Did everyone enjoy watching the cucumber cutting display? Seems a little strange to me to see a half naked man in a restaurant.
Hi Yen! Well, that was a special request from us – we heard/read about this “special” performance, so we asked the waitress if the chef can show us. As we were the last customers (and mostly men and only 3 ladies including me), the chef and employee came out and showed us when we were done with meal. No, we weren’t eating while seeing a naked guy LOL!
What a delicious restaurant to feature, I wish I could try all their dishes 😀
Cheers
CCU
This looks like such a fabulous Restaurant to dine at with the family – I think my favorite dish that you featured in this restaurant review is the Mungo Beans with Ham!
What a great review and a fun review!