Walter Hofheinz
Google
Update: we visited again tonight, and they have gotten much better. The service was friendly and reasonably attentive. The food was very good. The hot and sour soup was more balanced, and the Szechuan beef was much better. My companion got ginger tofu Thai and reports that it was very good. All in all a much better experience than our prior experience, making us much more likely to return.
Because our favorite Chinese restaurants are so far away from where we live, we decided to try Jia on Gaston which is much closer. We went at 8 on Friday night. There was no wait, and there was live music until about 8:30. We had to wait while a table was cleaned to allow us to be seated, although the restaurant was probably 80% empty at that point. While friendly, the staff was disorganized. The food was good, but different on each item that we ordered than what was expected based on the menu description and our general understanding of the item. My companion reports that the miso soup and the yellowtail roll were both quote "fine." The hot and sour soup was fair, but lacked that balance between hot and sour that the best such soup has, with what seemed like a strong black pepper note instead of hot created by a chili pepper. The steamed dumplings were mediocre and not recommended. They had a filling that was a little bit of pork and green onions that were disproportionately small compared to the amount of wrapper. The sauce that came with the dumplings was not good: although it looked like the typical sauce you get with dumplings, it tasted nothing like it. It tasted like very strongly of garlic with no other flavorants like ginger or soy sauce. The Szechuan beef was quite good, but not like any I had had before. The meat was large medallions, and the only vegetables were a generous portion of red and green bell peppers. The only similarity came from a very good Szechuan sauce (although it was not typical either). At $65 including tip for 2, without drinks, our meal was relatively expensive. All in all, a very mixed experience. While we may go back due to the dearth of good Chinese food in the neighborhood, it won't be our new favorite restaurant.